Bp Re tee 
(ae 


nea 
ata 






























































od 1% _4 
oa 
S 
(21229) \o a on \ 
829[€}104 35 —_™ 
bed Ay htat oes 2 -’ ; 
(vitq) P| YOAVNI| Finbeseny 
TT) ce ee 
0 O}IN} ¥ = 
¢ worwnds Sy : SO9vdvIvo 
~ ° “NK wOIWnOD “9 
r ers, *, sepjesaws3 
lr ee SS 
/ VIN vy o a 
e ° 
wong) Hound ) F Vil pinta 1 090 
auuasey *  HSILINS aq : ‘ a 
y Q yf . atm wiOPoWL 
‘ » ow ‘\d VIAAZS aaA . & 
oe a iF a b) 4eAijog Varn fPuewes ues + ele 5 % 
Sa : 
B1NUe|e A, Ojawisinbieg 9 | 
ol oe = ime Dae aut bey a Geueadezieg ‘| ° — Ol- 
: = » ¥ if eynbuvseg 439) 
bc} Ay? * *) 
9 = D es . N “y ves spleyanig Ls, 
9 I L V 7 4p V 2 VAOVUVOIN J rn oS 
=O NV@Ga@aqiavoga soig { *divsinrtay ¥ mm, 
ear e seve Gee svunanon f 
<a y 
A “Gey i o 
ECR cm ‘dNOH ye] 
es A ars Ny “D vorvave ezeg{ yy 
Soins SS Want we 
? ’ sankey sa 
? q™ 7 sefeg ae eaeg 
OseI}UE ‘ EBA 
_ ures ¥ > anigSo ofaysedues ier, , &, } is) asa 
3 ¥ 4/ epia } eoxe| 9970 11301 e 
\, > sauce a 8 MW enw 7] “XO, gpaetejepen 
fe ay “ Se uedxny eo 3 x z0z7— 
F S Oaid' >, %a 
pe a eae le \ ima ~« } wey, “60 Waye2sensy 
eee sk MENS Saag ’ Px ) ~31d08L ste te ------~—- BUBABH _... =... cesessewstgaces. sqiod 8°)* ey Stake pie 
Se eae ee / WC a 3 a ae fonts Tee aatas 5 VES 
~ Pi ) * mS m., S81 ea } “OIA ouenga anes eee 
— G a { = 49.119,u0 ones jon o 
VOVNY) # SN 3HL JO 1N3W3NOW NOLYONGI AYYNOISSIM Fag pe sl net < ee ao Lao i! gs 
S261 LHOIYAdOD ap ee ae \ 
4 7 \ } - paiey 
009 00F 002 = —— -* a S A seg o/8e 
a if Se 
SIOJOWLO[VY 
—— =) * svannu3e j Noe 
i j . bee 
009 00r 002 ~~ 5 a ‘ oseg Iq eed rs 
} x 
SO[T 09N7RIg wo f é ewn Mee 
ws Z s 321 urg 
000‘000‘sh:T afzag kp ‘ as ‘ f 
= | V 
a uqsutysey doo 8 Gauafy 
y10 X_ MON, ea! N | 
== Fo@ ty 3 
p eee 
L| . 
ot aod J LA] Ps F 
| ae. ‘or 
of oO? 09S ae : i 
. \ is zi 004 008 re 00 e001 oOft 9071 
So ONES i, Deas: A f YB yoni 


00 ol 0 of oor 00S 00 00f ce) 006 0 oolt o0¢l ofEl 









30S Spates 
0S 
| ait 
J 
bo fy 
r o 
<0 \ or 
*tm, ; 


: S04, : 
N p So Up. om ae Me j PINPIRA 
‘ Py “p,' 5 rea 
A %, % ks amis, 
2 g Oy ° & ¢ ‘ OjoBuy 
‘ BOY lPuer heoy uey'uD, 
2% S ( © Fuorsdaauo0y 
Oapraaquoyy 2% a? = pooung, 
©} oun Ebi 
asor ues <N 

sinjues  f} ¥OSBIJURS 

, Avnonun 6 NJo : 

19S Op apuesn ony JA cues BUeW EIIIA ezopuayy © @osivivdye A, 
———~~s08: stwae oN apietee 49 ‘apae s . ot: 
$ue9° \. OueSo se 2a, ByU o pro 2 ) = 
on a ~% A BjuRs O, hy uenr ues ; 








nse 
susry oti gravee ts pr | "oe 
T ey tae 2 i Yoqwinboo 
vy | eupweyeg 
hi 019 = 
syodeuenop34 eg She epesog fe lap odeeese i odeite) 
ot IBUILIUZ fe) 
t thi ely SIA A ato i 
/ uolou SV af ofjenes 
« 
ee lS ue . eiegO senererereess 
-----O1louv er op. Ory $6 ak oe vel baad ab? a is C Pe : raga Ssesel OU Bey eS eee eee casera 
ra [vg oes UoFedeauog vp ce : Sep eS pp eeanes— RUCHED Gua re dO ee “TT p1d0uL 
op 23° ‘_.. a | . Ree \ 
4 = $ L | ‘ 02— 
om Qanbinby 
j 1S0)0de i 
. e1a!S ej beset he q \ pase: 
: 1 aP 2119'S 90 i orl 
L fone : A opuayjow 
Lzekop . d BT Ovdimbes 
paekng® ‘VIAI TO @ Qe Cl I ) V d 
( PT 
viyeg FP 2MD6 YH oypnoeky 
‘ je oes \ eur] 
‘ Okesuenyo 8=— 


\ lc ot ok nrco) 





pleoesy "A 


‘rue Pe ‘i= 
we. < 


rv 


—— 
i ne cated 
joer ts 


‘ 
4 
i 
Ad 
oan 


scoaain 
Dig eee ee 


al 


- 


Revs eee 7 








+ Sey tet an OLDIE” Bit. i Ree ea ee 





Courtesy Board of 'oreign Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church 


Cuzco UNIVERSITY 


A VIEW OF THE QUADRANGLE OF THE UNIVERSITY, 
SHOWING THE BEAUTY OF SPANISH ARCHITECTURE. 
THE UNIVERSITY WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1692. 


Looking Ahead 
with Latin _A METICO 


“ARN OF PRIN 
SR i E 6, 
Ys 4 WAY 14 1927 Z 
By Stanley High 7 OGICAL sew 


Author of: China’s Place in the Sun; The Revolt 
of Youth; Europe Turns the Corner; etc. 






MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 


New York 


i T 
———————— oo 


Stanley High was graduated from Nebraska 
Wesleyan University in 1917 and served as 
a pilot in the air service during the World 
War. In 1919 he went to Europe as a member 
of the Reconstruction Committee of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church and then spent eight 
months traveling in China, investigating condi- 
tions and reporting for American papers. His 
first book, China’s Place in the Sun, was an 
outgrowth of this journey. In 1920 Mr. High 
entered the Boston University School of Theol- 
ogy and after his graduation in 1923 he spent 
several months studying the Youth Movements 
in Europe which he described in his second 
book, The Revolt of Youth. A later visit to 
Russia and Central Europe in 1924 resulted in 
a series of articles which have appeared in the 
Christian Science Monitor, the Atlantic Monthly 
and Asia and in another volume, Hurope Turns 
the Corner, published in 1925 by the Abingdon 
Press. Mr. High has studied Latin American 
problems under Leo S. Rowe, president of the 
Pan-American Union at the Williamstown 
Institute of Politics and has been in touch with 
the leaders among the younger generation in 
Latin American lands. Mr. High is Assistant 
Secretary in the Department of Home Culti- 
vation of the Board of Foreign Missions of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. 





Copyright, 1925, by the 
Missionary Education Movement 
of the United States and Canada 

Printed in the United States of America 


nT 
SSS 


CONTENTS 


Preface 


Cuapter I 
Conquistadores of the New World . 


Cuaprter II 
Today’s Latin America . 


Cuaprer III 
Building a New Mezico . 


Cuaptrrer IV 
Youth and the New Latin America 


Cuaprrer V 
Sefioras and Sefioritas of the South 


Cuapter VI 
Indians of Latin America 


Cuarter VII 
Results 


Cuaprer VIII 
Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Note on Pronunciation 


Reading List Dianne 


33 


59 


82 


102 


122 


144 


164 


187 


188 


y A 
at aves: 
‘ Wei MA 


fis 
si 


h 


ABLE ate 
a ew d Ky ¥ if 
FAN EOD ee 


Pata BMA 

ae ah tel ty 

re Ni 05 Fo 
th eas! 


Hoalaelth 
Deh a tol AM. 
(VAY Va 

Ree i) 


[ve nt ¢ 
air Ni Wy ee 


fray" 
* pid 


i 
4 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


“paGn 
Casco University iis och y. Frontispiece 
Laguna Frias, Argentina A MAL ERC RCA GAOL Me © 6 
A fertile valley in Chile . : : : cased Ga 
PE Revol) LOG) Wale fy yah ie iis pi Reiaceny ui Be 
The old wall of Cartagena . . ‘ i 48 
Church at\Copacabana . .  . : 4D 
Harbor of Rio de Janeiro... } a GS 
Congress Building, Buenos Aires . Cet D 
Grain elevators : PER ML Oa MPR MMO eRI tee 6 
Coffee ready for Seno AN ROE ie shal oO 
University of Chile, Santiago ; ; a ET 
Girls’ Club of a mission college .  . AN S$. 
Track meet at the American College . . 118 
Football team of Granbery College . . 1138 
Indian boy } d : ; : ? . 144 
Boy Scouts Aa FoR VMN : . 145 
Bible distribution . : : A rth OO 


Students in Theological hedee sah atk 


¥ 

ai * 
elt oh 
wv : 


J 
AS: 
> tye 
ah ft 


~ 





PREFACE 


Two purposes have dominated the writing of 
this book. I have sought, in the first place, to 
present an account of present-day Latin America 
which would emphasize the community of ideals 
that exists between the nations of the South and 
Canada and the United States to the North. A 
great many historical factors enter in to account 
for the fact that to many North Americans the 
Republics of Latin America appear to be back- 
ward, unstable, and of doubtful trustworthiness. 
An accurate account of present-day Latin America 
is the only effective antidote for that particular 
poison. In the present volume, therefore, I have 
sought to present a picture of these great Re- 
publics in terms that North Americans can under- 
stand and appreciate. 

As a second purpose, I have endeavored to 
indicate the fundamental place of Evangelical 
Christianity in the new and vital life that is 
stirring in Latin America. Evangelical Christi- 
anity has a great part to play in molding the 
post-war life of these republics. But that place, 
in Latin America, is not unique, save in so far as 
the Christian contribution around the world is 
unique. I have sought, therefore, to indicate that 
at the base of the new Latin America there must 
be built this Evangelical faith—in precisely the 


Vil 


Preface 


same way that I believe such faith must be built 
into the foundations of every nation that is 
struggling to reshape its life since the War. 

Looking Ahead with Latin America is a study 
book for young people. I have not written it ‘‘to 
young people.’? The accounts presented here of 
the tides of thought that are moving in the 
South have been written as matters of vital im- 
portance. It is my belief that—so long as they 
are kept vital—young people will be interested 
in these developments, sometimes even more 
earnestly than their elders. 

In the preparation of this volume the work done 
by Mr. W. Reginald Wheeler, Secretary of the 
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
Church in the U.S. A., in assembling a vast amount 
of material touching every phase of the life in 
Latin America has been of inestimable value. Mr. 
Wheeler, prevented from writing the book because 
of ill health, placed the data which he had gathered 
at my disposal, and I wish to express to him my 
very great indebtedness for that help. 

STANLEY HIGH 


New York 
1925 


I 
Conquistadores of the New World 


Tus history of the discovery and conquest of 
the Americas is a romance of Old World dream- 
ers and gay adventurers; of scientists, alter- 
nately scoffed at and revered, plotting maps and 
reading stars; of kings and queens in search of 
richer kingdoms; of sailors out for spoils, and 
priests for converts; and merchants seeking gold 
and silks and spices. To follow this romance 
leads one to royal audience rooms—tapestried 
and dazzling; down cobbled streets, along fish- 
fragrant waterfronts to harbors where fragile 
ships bob at their anchors and fishermen, in the 
early morning, work with the nets. 

Its further course lies out beyond the bound- 
aries of maps and charts into an unknown vast- 
ness of sky and sea, and of stars, at night; of 
vicious winds and rain and sea-green waves that 
put the decks awash; of strange birds and drift- 
ing seaweed; through the Ancients’ Heaven and 
Hell into a New World. 

And then the story of discovery becomes, also, 
a tale of conquest. Strange tribes are met and, 
as the case requires, conciliated or vanquished. 
Flags are planted, new Empires claimed and new 
Kingdoms of the Cross staked out. The thin 

9 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


thread that Columbus drew between the Old 
World and the New becomes a brilliant fabric 
woven by countless ships and dauntless men. 
Into the pattern of that fabric go all the passions 
of the ages—the lust for gold and the lust for 
power; the love of adventure and the ruthless 
piety; and later the flaming zeal for religious and 
political freedom. 

And bound inseparably in the warp and woof 
of this fabric of discovery and conquest are the 
two Americas—North and South. The same pas- 
sions and loyalties and the same adventuring led 
to the conquering of both continents. For good 
or ill, the early history of the Americas is woven 
together in this single pattern of romance. And 
in this twentieth century, for good or for ill, the 
destiny of these two Americas is still closely 
intertwined. 

In the cabin of Columbus, on his voyage of dis- 
covery, there sailed Martino Sanchez, a lad still 
in his teens, whose father served His Most Chris- 
tian Majesty, King Ferdinand of Spain. Mar- 
tino, though no sailor, was sent forth with the 
blessing of the King himself, to watch over the 
Admiral who bore the flag of Spain. 

It was on the third day of August, 1492, that 
the little fleet of caravels set sail from the har- 
bor of Palos, a short way to the north of the 

10 


Conquistadores of the New World 


Spanish city of Cadiz. Three ships—the Pinta, 
the Nina, and the Santa Maria—comprised the 
squadron. And toy vessels they were, too. The 
Santa Maria, the flagship and largest of the 
three, was but ninety feet in length, with a twenty- 
foot beam, and she carried a crew of fifty-two. 
Any one of the three, doubtless, could be con- 
veniently stowed away in the hold of a twentieth- 
century liner. 

But to Martino, as he stood on the deck of the 
Maria, watching the Spanish coast drop down the 
horizon, they were glorious vessels—craft of con- 
quest and emblems of the majesty of Spain. It 
was near sunset and a stiff land breeze was blow- 
ing. The sun, lingering above the sea, shot rays 
of gold into the topsail of the Santa Mara and 
shone upon the flag of Ferdinand and Isabella 
flying above it. Ahead, the square-sailed Pinta— 
the fleetest craft of the three—was leading this 
merry race into the Unknown. Aft, somewhat 
lumbering, came the Nina. 

Martino’s eyes shone. Behind him lay the drab 
Old World. Ahead was mystery—the Great Ad- 
venture—he knew not what. The sun fell over 
the ocean’s rim. Whitecaps spotted the sea 
ahead. A wave rode into the Mara. Spray 
dashed the deck where Martino stood. He 
dreamed no more. For all of a sudden he 
realized that he was hungry, and that things were 

ll 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


stirring in the brick-made cooking galley half- 
way down the deck. 


More than two months later—October 5, to 
be exact—and the little fleet still headed into the 
west. A heavy sea was running. The three ships 
tossed like bits of cork from wave to wave. Mar- 
tino, his dark skin blackened. by the weeks at 
sea, was on deck. <A good bit of glory had gone 
out of his adventure since that sunshiny August 
day when the three boats—their pennants stream- 
ing—beat down the coast of Spain and sailed to- | 
ward the setting sun. The flag of Ferdinand and 
Isabella had been whipped from the mast in a 
gale long since. The Maltese cross in the main- 
sail had been washed out by the driving rains. 
There was little enough of glamor now about the 
caravels; only the signs of days becalmed under 
a scorching sun; the batterings by day and night 
of wind-swept seas; weary men who were afraid 
and a weary Admiral who had both faith and 
courage. | 

Martino slipped down the deck and steadied 
himself against the capstan. It was that last— 
the Admiral—that worried him. For himself, 
Martino had no fear. Day and night in the Ad- 
miral’s cabin he had come to partake of the Ad- 
miral’s faith. Land, at every evening, was 
always just over the horizon beyond the sun. 

12 


Conquistadores of the New World 


And every morning, with the world still a mean- 
ingless expanse of sea and sky, Martino believed, 
as the Admiral said, that night would certainly 
bring land. So it went, night and day, day and 
night, week after week. And the faith of Mar- 
tino in the Admiral, and the Admiral’s faith in 
his enterprise never for a moment wavered. 

But the crew did not know the Admiral as 
Martino knew him. The crew was mutinous. 
Only the night before, loitering in the stern of 
the boat, Martino overheard a conversation be- 
tween two common sailors. 

‘‘We’ll pitch him over the side,’’ said one. 
‘“Who’d be wiser?”’ 

‘‘Washed away in a storm,’’ said the other, 
‘Cand there’d be no more questions asked.’’ 

‘“‘But we can’t keep on and on forever,’’ said 
the first. ‘‘The food is low and God knows what’s 
ahead of us.”’ 

‘‘Tt’s the Admiral’s mind,’’ said the second. 
‘‘He thinks there’s land out there, when every- 
body in Cadiz knows well enough there’s nothing 
but destruction. But the Admiral’ll have us all 
to the bottom—and that soon—before he’ll put 
about. For me, I’m for taking over the ship our- 
selves and pointing her back to Spain.’’ 

‘¢And me,’’ said the other. 

Martino slipped out of hearing and down the 
deck to the cabin. His heart was pounding and 

13 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


his knees shook. Inside the cabin the Admiral 
was bending over his log. In the cabin he was 
always at work on his log or toiling over his maps. 
He looked up as Martino entered. His eyes were 
sunken and his face drawn. His smile was weary. 

‘‘A rough night,’’ he said, and bent over his 
log again. 

Martino did not answer. He was thinking hard. 
Should he tell the Admiral, or confide first to 
Pero Gutierrez, a friend of Martino’s father, who, 
in the Old Country, had been groom of the King’s 
wardrobe. No—the Admiral must be told. And 
Martino, therefore, told him, and named the con- 
spirators. 

Columbus heard him through—his bearded chin 
sunk on his breast, his legs spread out full length 
before him, his hands hanging listless at his sides. 
For a moment he did not speak, and then not to 
Martino. He looked across at the cabin wall 
where a tiny crucifix was hung, and muttered to 
himself. 

‘¢We’ve gone so far, so far,’’ he said, ‘‘we must 
goon. It’s there—the land—it must be there. I 
will not turn back. They can throw me over- 
board, but I’ll not turn back—never, never!’ and 
his voice trailed off. 

He looked at Martino, still standing there riv- 
eted to the spot. 

‘‘Thank you, lad,’’ he said, ‘‘I’ve need of 

14 


Conquistadores of the New World 


friends like you. But we’ll not head for Spain 
—not yet—not until we’ve claimed new land for 
their Majesties whose flag we bear, and the Cross 
we are proud to carry.”’ 

And without another word he turned again to 
his log. 

So on this night Martino was worried. The 
crew was sullen, more sullen than the Admiral 
knew. For two days there had been no seaweed 
alongside the ship; no birds to spur their hope 
that land was near; and a stiff gale had kept 
all hands on deck. Worst of all, Martino had 
discovered that the Admiral was giving false re- 
ports of the distance sailed each day in order to 
reassure the men. In the log, which lay open on 
the Admiral’s table, Martino had read this entry 
—obviously intended for the eyes of no one but 
Columbus himself: 

‘‘Sailed this day nineteen leagues and deter- 
mined to count less than the true number that the 
crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should 
prove long.’’ 

Standing there beside the capstan, watching the 
dark hulks of the Nina and the Pinta as they 
pitched along in the wake of the Santa Maria, 
Martino felt certain that serious developments 
were at hand. The Admiral’s promises had worn 
threadbare. His threats no longer were a men- 
ace. The journey was insufferably long. And, 

15 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


after all, who knew what lay out there beyond 
this black and endless waste? 

Martino was right. At that moment three 
sailors passed him on their way from the Ad- 
miral’s cabin. The lad was alarmed. What busi- 
ness had they with Columbus at this hour? Mar- 
tino made all haste to the cabin. Columbus was 
there, as usual, his log spread out before him, 
a crude map dropping over the side of the table. 
But he was not writing—only staring straight 
ahead of him at the cabin wall where the crucifix 
was hanging. 

He looked up as Martino entered. 

‘Well, they’ve driven me to it, lad,’’ he said. 
‘“‘T cannot sail the ships without men, and those 
who would stand with me are outnumbered three 
to one by these mutineers. I’ve agreed that if, 
after three days’ sail, we sight no land, IT will 
put about for Spain.’’ 

He said no more, but continued sitting there 
_his weary eyes despairing, his body slouched 
in his chair in utter, desperate exhaustion. Mar- 
tino, his heart heavy for the Admiral, slipped 
off to his bunk without a word. 

The next day, October 11, was fair—but the 
sea ran heavily. At noon word came from the 
Pinta, now leading the little fleet, that the crew 
had picked up a stick which appeared to have 
been carved with iron. Columbus, who had been 

16 








ScENIC CONTRASTS IN SoutTH AMERICA 


ABOVE, IS ONE OF THE MANY LAKES OF ARGENTINA, BEAUTIFIED 
BY SNOW-CAPPED PEAKS IN THE BACKGROUND. BELOW, IS A 
PASTURE SCENE IN ONE OF THE FERTILE VALLEYS OF CHILE. 


“AUOLINGAD HLATHML FHL AOA 
aqoiwad AWOS OL MOVE ALVA SNINYW ASHHL “AVINOW LOOHLIMA AWHALASOL TNd ANV 
‘dNVH AM SNVIGNI AHL AT NMAH AYAM TIVM SIHL dd AIVN LVHL SMOOTd ANOLS FHL 


TIVAA VONT GIO AHL 





Conquistadores of the New World 


on deck since before dawn, never ceased to strain 
his eyes toward the west. Two days more to sail 
—and if no land, Spain again—and defeat. 

And so the day passed. Late afternoon a sailor 
called from the Nina, in great joy, that they had 
seen a stalk loaded with roseberries floating upon 
the waves. The Admiral’s eyes flashed at the 
news. And Martino did a joyful song and dance 
back of the cooking galley. Night came on—and 
still the Admiral did not leave the deck. A 
strange suspense held all the crew and all hands 
were on deck. The ships made good headway in 
the early evening—sailing due west. 

At ten o’clock the Admiral cried out that he 
saw a light. But it flickered once and was gone 
before anyone else could see it. At midnight, 
however, a joyful shout went up from the Pinta. © 
Rodrigo de Triana, standing watch, discovered a 
Jong dark line above the horizon. Immediately 
land signals were given, and by two o’clock the 
three caravels, having sailed within two leagues 
of the shore, drew in their canvas and hove te 
until morning, in the lee of the New World. 

And Martino, breathless in his excitement, 
joined with the sailors in the Salve,—which they 
always repeat on occasions of rejoicing,—looked 
once more at the dim mysterious coastline that 
loomed up ahead, and went below, crossing him- 
self—good Catholic that he was—and dreaming 

17 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


already of the thrills which the next day promised. 

He touched the side of the cabin wall. The 
glamor of that first day, off the coast of Spain, 
was coming back. Those little boats were the 
eraft of conquest and this voyage, after all, had 
become the Great Adventure. 


Hernan Cortez was as chivalrous a farmer as 
ever drove the slaves of the Indies, and as pros- 
perous. The little town of St. Jago was his town. 
He had come to it sometime after the year 1511, 
when he joined Velasquez in the conquest of Cuba. 
Ample acreage, and slaves sufficient to cultivate 
it, were the reward of Cortez for his services in 
that expedition. Wealth had flowed into the 
Cortez coffers, and distinction—dignified, rural 
distinction—had accrued to the Cortez name. 

But Cortez himself was far from satisfied. He 
had come out from Spain—a lad of nineteen years 
—seeking adventure. He had found it—scatter- 
mgs of it; a duel now and then, a skirmish or 
two, this expedition to Cuba. And then—agri- 
cultural oblivion. Cortez was still a very young 
man, and driving slaves to the fields and sipping 
wine on his spacious piazza and engaging in 
sweet tilts with the maidens of St. Jago was no 
hife for a young man. Not, at least, in such stir- 
ring times. 

18 


Conquistadores of the New World 


So when Velasquez, the Governor, proposed to 
outfit an armada and proceed to Mexico,—there 
to convert the Indians, and, incidentally, of 
course, to annex their lands and wealth,—Cortez 
was ready for the expedition. And when the 
young farmer of St. Jago was chosen as captain- 
general of the force, he sank all his fortune and 
also that of his friends in preparations for the 
conquest. 

But Velasquez’s was a suspicious soul—given 
to jealousy. The rising fortunes of young Cortez 
gave him uneasiness. How should he know that 
this young and reckless courtier would ever split 
the spoils or share the honors? He was too young 
and too ambitious to be trusted. A new captain- 
general, therefore, must be found. 

But Cortez had friends at court. Two young 
men, Lares and Duero, hearing of the plan on 
foot forthwith told him of the Governor’s scheme. 
And Cortez, though his fleet was inadequately 
equipped and his force not yet recruited, made 
a quick decision, as he was frequently called upon 
to do in later times. He resolved to weigh anchor 
that very night. He called his officers, informed 
them of his purpose, and at midnight—while the 
town was sleeping—they boarded the ships and. 
slipped noiselessly down the bay. 

First, however, Cortez, with an eye to the 

19 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


future, visited the merchant who was to supply 
him with meat, relieved him of his entire stock 
and left, in payment, a heavy gold chain that he 
wore about his neck. 


The next morning the little town was agog. 
The news reached the Governor and he was still 
more agog. He arose,—an hour earlier than 
notables were accustomed to arise,—mounted his 
horse, and galloped madly to the quay. Cortez, 
seeing from his vessel the arrival of Velasquez, 
entered an armed boat and drew close to shore. 

‘‘Have you any commands to give me?”’ 
shouted Cortez. 

But the incensed Governor had no commands 
and returned to his mansion conscious that he 
had made two fatal errors; first, the appointment 
of Cortez to command; and, second, the effort 
to deprive him of it. 

Cortez, however, little disturbed, set sail. 
After weeks of loitering along the coast of Cuba, 
where his stores were completed and his com- 
plement of men filled out, he set sail, on the 
tenth of February, 1519, for the mainland. Be- 
fore sailing for Yucatan, however, Cortez took 
stock of his force and found that his strength 
consisted of one hundred and ten mariners; an 
infantry division of five hundred and fifty-three 

20 


Conquistadores of the New World 


soldiers; Indians to the extent of some two hun- 
dred; an artillery brigade of ten heavy guns, four 
light pieces, and ample ammunition; and a cav- 
alry squadron containing sixteen horses. 

With this handful for an army the young Span- 
ish farmer—he was then but thirty-three—set sail 
on February 19, 1519, in eleven flimsy vessels 
for the conquest of a continent—a conquest that 
was to destroy the Aztec, one of the most ancient 
of civilizations; lay waste a great territory; 
subjugate the whole of Mexico; and implant the 
Spanish flag and the Cross over a new World 
Empire. 


It was midsummer of the same year—1519. 
Cortez and his paltry force had pushed inland 
from the coast, leaving the fleet with one hundred 
mariners at the little village of Villa Rica—now 
Vera Cruz. With the advancing Spanish con- 
querors was Duero—the same young man who 
had apprized Cortez of the Governor’s determi- 
nation to give the command of the expedition to 
another. Duero, several years younger than 
Cortez, was still his most trusted friend. They 
were constantly together on the march. 

On this particular July night camp was pitched 
on the outskirts of an Indian village. The day 
had been overbearingly hot. Two men whom 

21 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Cortez could ill afford to lose had died that day 
of some strange New World malady. The men 
were disaffected, and their disaffection was stim- 
ulated by a traitorous priest, Juan Diaz. 

This priest—as ingenious as he was faithless— 
hatched a plan against Cortez. The disaffected 
soldiers, with Diaz at their head, were to steal 
provisions, make for Villa Rica, and from there 
set sail for Cuba, where the Governor, doubtless, 
would give them safe haven from the wrath of 
Cortez. On this particular night the plan was to 
be executed. Stores were secreted beyond the 
camp, and at the appointed signal the deserters 
were to slip from their tents and with all haste 
make for the coast. 

Duero, returning to his tent from the quarters 
of Cortez, passed Diaz, the priest, on the way. 
He spoke, and the priest, obviously disturbed at 
the meeting, stammered some reply. Duero, who 
wasted no affection on Diaz, determined to follow 
him. The way led, by a circuitous route, to the 
cache where the stolen stores were hidden. | 

Alarmed, Duero hastened back to Cortez and 
told him what he had seen. The young general 
lost no time. He summoned to him two captains 
and confided to them the plot on foot. ‘‘We will 
surround the place,’’ said Cortez, ‘‘and make 
short shrift of their enterprise.’’ 

22 


Conquistadores of the New World 


The two captains, Cortez, and twelve men did 
the job. The traitors were caught by surprise 
and captured. Diaz claimed the benefit of clergy 
and got it. The other ringleaders, not fortunate 
enough to be priests, were hanged and the rest 
of the rebels dealt with in no uncertain manner. 

The conspiracy had been caught in time. But 
Cortez was still disturbed. Mutiny in a force so 
small as his meant disaster. And mutiny there 
would always be so long as ahead there lay more 
perils, and behind, these ships and a certain 
avenue of escape. 

‘“‘T’ve made up my mind,’’ he said to Duero 
the next day. ‘‘I’m going to destroy the ships.’’ 
- Duero was aghast. ‘‘What do you mean?’’ he 
asked. 

‘‘ Just that. As long as we have the ships, the 
faint hearts among our men will look back to them 
with so much longing that it is bound to interfere 
with their fighting.’’ 

‘‘But,’’ said Duero, ‘‘if we’re defented-—how 
can we escape?’’ 

‘¢We will not be defeated,’’ said Cortez. And 
added, after a moment, ‘‘So long as we have the 
ships, we are more certain to be beaten. And if 
we are beaten, we’ll be so far from the coast that 
they’ll do us no good and we will perish anyway. 
There’s no arguing; my mind is made up.’’ 

23 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


A few days later word spread like wildfire 
among the troops that all but one of the eleven 
vessels were at the bottom of the bay. There 
was consternation—and then anger. The mur- 
murs against Cortez were threatening. The sol- 
diers gathered in little groups and cursed their 
general and swore certain vengeance. Plots— 
many of them—were set on foot for his destruc- 
tion. The expedition was on the verge of bloody 
disaster. 

Cortez, knowing full well his peril, summoned 
his men to arms. He watched them as they drew 
in line before his quarters, a sullen, desperate lot, 
their eyes glaring at him. One false word and 
they would be upon him. He knew that well 
enough. He stood before them. The air was 
charged with their hatred. He began to speak. 
Their loss, he said, was a greater loss to him, 
for the vessels were his property. If saved, the 
fleet could be of little value to them in the in- 
terior. He urged them to turn their thoughts, 
not backward, but ahead. ‘‘To be calculating 
chances and means of escape is unworthy of brave 
souls. You have set your hands to the work; 
to look back, as you advance, will be your ruin.”? 

He concluded, ‘‘If there be any so craven as to 
shrink from sharing the dangers of our glorious 
enterprise, let them go home, in God’s name. 
There is still one vessel left. Let them take that 

24 


Conquistadores of the New World 


and return to Cuba. They can tell there how 
they deserted their commander and their com- 
rades, and patiently wait until we return, loaded 
with spoils of the Aztecs. As for me, I have 
chosen my part. I will remain here while there 
is one to bear me company.”’ 

And the soldiers, under the spell of a conqueror 
of men as well as continents, shouted with him: 

‘<To Mexico! To Mexico!’’ 

This act of destroying the ships, say the his- 
torians, ‘‘in the face of an incensed and desperate 
soldiery has few parallels in history.’? And with 
his bridges burned behind, Cortez turned toward 
the dangerous course ahead that he had elected 
to follow—a path that was to lead him conquer- 
ing through the empire of Moctezuma and into 
the city of Mexico, the capital of the Western 
World. 


Peru—to the Spaniards who had settled on the 
coasts of the New World—was a land of mys- 
tery; of old civilizations and cities; of great lakes 
and mountains; of rich valleys, watered by great 
rivers; and, above all, a land where gold abounded 
like sand by the sea. 

It happened, sometime about the year 1511, that 
Vasco Nuifiez de Balboa, discoverer of the South- 
ern Sea, was one day weighing some gold which 
he had gathered from the natives. A young chief- 

25 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


tain, watching the operation, stepped up, struck 
the scales, and scattered the precious metal upon 
the ground. 

‘Tf this is what you prize so much that you are 
willing to leave your distant homes and risk even 
life itself for it, I can tell you of a land where 
they eat and drink out of golden vessels and where 
gold is as cheap as iron with you.’’? 

It was sometime after this that Balboa scaled 
the mountains which divide the Isthmus of Pan- 
ama and beheld, for the first time, the Pacific 
Ocean. Armed with his sword and buckler, he 
strode into the waters of this new-found ocean 
and, with chivalrous vanity, declared that he 
claimed it ‘‘with all that it contained for the King 
of Castile, and that he would make good that claim 
against all, Christian or infidel, who dared gain- 
say it.’’ Thus, coolly and in one breath, all the 
vast ocean and host of islands washed by the 
Pacific were pocketed for Spain. A large boast— 
that, but typically imperial and one that led to 
more bloodshed than Balboa ever dreamed. 

Here, at the fringe of the Pacific, Balboa heard 
more of Peru—the land of mystery and of gold. 
Though he steered his ship for this kingdom of 
riches, he never reached its borders, for he fell 
a victim to the hostility of a jealous superior. 

Some years later, in the little community of 

1 Conquest of Peru, The. W. H. Prescott. Vol. I. p. 197. 

26 


Conquistadores of the New World 


Panama, however, Peru was constantly talked 
about and rumors of its wealth flew even thicker 
than in the earlier time. Cortez, by his dazzling 
feats of conquest in Mexico, fanned the flames of 
desire among these Spanish adventurers, and one 
day, in 1524, three men joined hands in a pledge 
that, come what might, they would penetrate this 
strange country. One of the three, because of 
his courage and resource, was chosen to head the 
expedition. This man was Francisco Pizarro. 
His two associates were Diego de Almagro, a sol- 
dier of fortune, and Hernando de Luque, a Span- 
ish ecclesiastic and a man of means. 

With a hundred men—a motley lot of irre- 
sponsible adventurers—and one small ship, Pi- 
zarro, in November, 1524, set sail from Panama 
on his first voyage to the South. 

Three years later—and the solemn contract en- 
tered into by Almagro, Luque, and Pizarro was 
still unfulfilled. Expeditions had gone forth only 
to be turned back by starvation, storms, disease, 
and mutiny. Pizarro and his followers, now on 
their second voyage, were marooned on the island 
of Gallo, a short distance off the northern coast 
of South America. Their only vessel had just 
been sent to Panama for help. And the men on 
the island waited week after week for its return. 
They were half naked. The food gave out and 
starvation clawed at them. Panama seemed 

27 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


worlds away. The spirit of adventure died out 
of their hearts. Only Pizarro determined to hold 
on. | 

It was thus that Tafur, the agent of the Gov- 
ernor at Panama, sent out to effect their rescue, 
found them. His orders were to embark the en- 
tire company at once and return with them to 
Panama. The Governor was disgusted with wild 
expeditions of wilder men that brought nothing 
but disaster to a none too wealthy colony. And 
Pizarro’s men, weak with their suffering, shared 
this disgust. 

But not so, Pizarro. South of the Isle of Gallo 
was Peru. Back there in Panama, in a church, 
Pizarro had sealed a vow to find that golden king- 
dom, and no amount of starvation, no suffering, 
and no instructions from an irate Governor could 
turn him back from the quest. Pizarro would 
stay if he stayed alone. He would find Peru if 
with his own sword he was forced to cut a path- 
way to its boundaries. His men were leaving 
him. A favoring wind was blowing, and the boats 
were about to sail. But Pizarro, himself worn 
and haggard, made a last appeal. He stepped in 
front of his little company. They watched him 
—hesitating—as he drew his sword and traced in 
the sand at his feet a line from east to west. 
Stepping back and turning toward the south he 
said: 

28 


Conquistadores of the New World 


‘‘Wriends and comrades, on that side are toil, 
hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, deser- 
tion, and death; on this side ease and pleasure. 
There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama 
and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best 
becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go 
to the South.’’ And he stepped across the line. 

And twelve others followed him across that 
line. The rest, with hearts less stout, boarded 
the ships for Panama. The sails were set and 
a stiff breeze, blowing north, soon bore them off 
beyond the horizon. On the sandy beach of the 
Isle of Gallo, thirteen men watched them—two 
tiny white spots—as they disappeared. Then 
thirteen men turned south to face an enterprise 
unequaled in the romance of world conquest. 
Without food or clothing, with arms unfit for con- 
querors, not knowing the land toward which they 
started, and with no vessel to transport them 
there, these thirteen men had stepped across that 
thin line in the sand, faced south, and entered 
upon a great crusade; a crusade that did not end 
until another ancient civilization—that of the 
Incas—was destroyed, amazing fortunes made, 
new cities founded, and the white man far ad- 
vanced, for good or ill, on the road to the conquest 
of all the southern continent. 


It was stuff of this sort—Old World dreamers 
29 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


and gay adventurers, strange seas and stranger 
lands, blood and gold, starvation and disease— 
that was woven, bright threads and dull, into the 
pattern of romance of the New World’s conquest. 

The doorway of the vast continent of the South 
we have seen pried open by the swords of daunt- 
less Spanish conquistadores. Other conquerors 
—Portuguese as well as Spanish—pushed in after 
these first adventurers. In their wake came colo- 
nists, seeking to pluck wealth from the trees or, 
as more often happened, from the natives; mer- 
chants, who took, after the white man’s fashion, 
and gave little in return; priests, bent on con- 
verting the natives whether they liked it or not. 
A long and ever increasing host of new popula- 
tion crowded through. Cities that transplanted 
bits of the Old World into the New sprang up. 
Nations founded upon Old World ideals, refreshed 
and modernized, came into being. The door that 
the conquistadores, with their swords, pried open 
was flung wide as it stands today. Through that 
door Latin America is reaching out to the world, 
and through it, the world, for good or ill, is 
entering Latin America. 

As in those earlier days of conquest there are 
new adventures today in Latin America. There 
are adventures in commerce and in engineering 
and in industry. But more than these are the 
adventures in the great human enterprise of help- 

30 


Conquistadores of the New World 


ing the people of Latin America, themselves, to 
build a new social order. For Latin America 
has been in the path of this twentieth century’s 
material progress. Those things by which we 
distinguish our age from ages past have come 
in abundance to most of the nations of the South. 
As a result, Latin America is being driven, as 
all of the world is driven, to choose whom she 
will serve. Materialism, on the one hand, offers 
more wealth while paralleling greater poverty; 
a religion of possessions; a trust only in man- 
made tools and a disdain for the unseen force that 
created them. Christianity, on the other hand, 
offers no less of the good things of life but con- 
tends for the rights of all mankind to share them; 
and makes the test of progress not in terms of 
greater speed or comfort or efficiency, but in 
terms of better men and women. 

This is the issue in today’s Latin America—a 
straight-drawn struggle between materialism and 
the ideals of Christ; between those who would 
live to get and those who would live to give. 
In that struggle every right-thinking young man 
and woman is concerned, for its issue will de- 
termine the ideals that will dominate Latin Amer- 
ica and the world for the next century. Into the 
balance in Latin America, as in every other con- 
tinent, the resources of Christianity have been 
thrown. In the issues now at stake Christianity 

ol 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


itself is involved. And because both Americas 
face the future as neighbors, the fate of both is 
twined together in this struggle—as their early 
history was woven into the single pattern of their 
first discovery and conquests. 


32 


IT 
Today's Latin America 


Neary four centuries and a half after Rodrigo 
de Triana, standing watch in the Pinta, sighted 
the island outposts of a new continent, another 
voyager came from the Old World into the New. 
In the path of that fragile fleet of Spanish cara- 
vels that brought Martino Sanchez to his Great 
Adventure sailed the giant ZR-3. Along the route 
that Columbus sailed, driven by every variant 
wind toward meaningless horizons, a new trail 
had been blazed, a trail marked by wireless and 
weather reports, by steaming cruisers, huge mo- 
tors and a silver pencil, with the speed of the 
fastest train, droning its way down the sky. 

Kighty-one hours—Columbus took nearly as 
many days as this—from Friedrichshaven, in 
southern Germany, and the great dirigible was 
at rest in its hangar at Lakehurst. And the New 
World of the ZR-3, speeding down the coast of 
Spain to the open sea, was millenniums removed 
from the dark shores to which Martino sailed. 
In the early morning the great ship, trailing mists 
from the east, came and hung, a miracle, in the 
brilliant sky over New York City. Giant build- 
ings—floor on floor—stretched their steel arms 
up toward it. Airplanes, like wide-winged wasps, 

33 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


flitted around. Its motors sent a rhythmic roar 
down into the canyoned streets. It dipped and 
rose and circled over the capital of the West, and 
from factories and steamships and thousands of 
people, bound for work, went up a medley of 
welcome. 

Adventure, surely, was not dead, nor conquests 
ended. In 1924 came the aerial discovery of 
America. Now one may travel up some of the 
rivers of Latin America—along the routes that 
the early explorers labored over—by airplane. A 
few hours, whirling through space five thousand 
feet above the land, and today’s adventurer may 
cover distances that required months in those 
early years of conquest. | 

Airplanes, flying along the trail of Quesada 
through Colombia; the ZR-3 in its Lakehurst 
hangar beside the Shenandoah; the pioneering 
squadron that found a way, by air, around the 
globe; millions of ‘‘listeners in’’ at tiny, mys- 
terious sets that put the whole world chair-to- 
chair in a single audience—these are the signs— 
inescapable signs—that all nations and peoples 
have found lodgings in the same house—and a 
very small house at that. And for us—in North 
America—it is time to start to inquire about 
those who live in the next apartment. Some day 
—who knows?—there may be a fire; or a thief 
may break in upon us; or sickness may lay us 

od 


Today’s Latin America 


low. It is good—and safer—to keep on friendly 
terms with the neighbors. 

Now Latin America—who happens to live next 
to us—possesses wide estates and yet is as little 
known as her people are understood. To tell the 
truth, it needs some genius to popularize her 
wonders as Kipling has popularized the wonders 
of India. The real romance of Latin America 
has not, as yet, been discovered by the people 
of North America. The hidden rivers, strange, 
lost tribes, ancient civilizations of that southern 
continent have not been popularized as some day 
they are sure to be. It is plain enough, of course, 
that temple bells and jade pagodas and ancient 
junks on a lazy sea lend themselves more readily 
to poetry than rubber plantations and beef, tram 
cars and public schools and parliaments. The un- 
fortunate fact is that—outside of poetry—we 
could probably worry along fairly well without 
the colorful paraphernalia which Kipling brings 
from the East. But we need beef, and rubber, 
and schools. They are a part of our daily life. 
So no one writes poetry about them. They have 
too much matter-of-fact importance. The won- 
ders of Latin America, therefore, have not, as 
yet, been sung. But when they are they will make 
a real epic. 


Latin America, if we include Mexico, South 
35 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


America, Central America, and the West Indies, 
covers an area of more than 8,000,000 square 
miles. From the Rio Grande on the northern 
boundary of Mexico to Cape Horn, the southern 
tip of the continent, is a distance of 7,000 miles. 
South America’s largest state, Brazil, has a 
greater area than the United States without 
Alaska and is larger than all Europe without Rus- 
sia. One of the smallest states—Panama—is 
twice the size of Switzerland. Uruguay, the 
smallest country in South America proper, has 
an area larger than England. The republics of 
Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru have 
areas ranging from 364,000 to 695,733 square 
miles—the smallest of the three being larger than 
France and Spain combined. Argentina is larger 
than the United States east of the Mississippl, 
and if laid upon the map of North America would 
reach from the southern tip of Florida to 
northern Labrador.’ 

The mountains of South America are the high- 
est in the Western Hemisphere and the Andean 
range, alone, is 4,400 miles long. Three rivers— 
the Orinoco, the Amazon, and La Plata—drain 
South America’s aante slope. 

Much of South America is situated in n the torrid 
zone and, as a result, its great mineral wealth 
of gold, alee copper, mercury, iron, and petro- 

1A History of Latin America. William Warren Sweet. 

36 


Today's Latin America 


leum is supplemented by rich yields of cotton, 
rice, sugar, coffee, cocoa, bananas, oranges, and 
rubber. Most of the capitals of South American 
states, however, are in the temperate zone, and 
the southern part of the continent is as far from 
the equator as Labrador. 

The Portuguese and Spanish explorers found 
two general types of native races when they en- 
tered Latin America. First, there were the sav- 
ages—naked, barbarous, living, for the most part, 
on the islands and east of the Andes in South 
America; and, second, the Indians, who had built 
up—especially the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas 
in Peru—a rather remarkable civilization of their 
own. In general, there are now three strains of 
population; the Indians, the whites, and the mes- 
tizos, those of mixed blood. Of the present-day 
total population of eighty millions some eighteen 
millions are pure white; seventeen millions pure 
Indian; thirty millions mestizos, with approxi- 
mately fourteen millions of intermixed white, In- 
dian, and Negro blood. 

Here in North America we go on in bland ig- 
norance of the world that lies to the south of us. 
We learn in school that back in the nineteenth 
century the United States, by the Monroe Doc- 
trine, made a special preserve of all the southern 
continent—and let it go at that. Real estate de- 
velopments at the north pole arouse more popular 

37 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


interest. Every now and then some general or 
secretary or ambassador goes to a southern coun- 
try on a friendship-stimulating expedition and we 
all breathe a sigh of relief when he gets safely 
home again. 

Go into the office of the news editor of almost 
any American daily paper and you will find that, 
with the possible exception of Mexico, the last 
‘‘dope’’ that ever makes the sheet is the news 
—the real news—of Latin America. And the last 
place on earth—Africa included—to which news- 
papers send their crack correspondents is our 
neighbor continent. Of course, if there is a riot 
somewhere—if some Herrin, Illinois, breaks loose 
down there—we have it, with our breakfast cereal, 
as ‘‘another South American revolution.’’ 

So we go on, bound to South America as in- 
separably as God could bind us, yet relishing these 
preconceived misconceptions about our continental 
Siamese twin. At breakfast we grunt ‘‘I told you 
so’s’’ about the latest ‘‘revolution,’’ over a cup 
of Brazilian coffee, sweetened, perhaps, with 
Peruvian sugar; we walk to work on heels of 
Colombian rubber; dine on Argentine beef and 
vegetables grown in fields fertilized with Chilean 
nitrates; and then, like as not, in some moment 
of exuberance invest in a diamond—the diamond 
—cut probably from the mines of Brazil. 

When the Portuguese navigator, Cabral, who 

38 


Today's Latin America 


put out from Lisbon in March of the year 1500, 
first landed on the Brazilian coast and, after the 
fashion of that and subsequent periods, erected 
a cross and claimed the territory in the name of 
Portugal, there was little to commend the land. 
And when, on New Year’s day, 1501, Amerigo 
Vespucci, in the employ of Portugal, sailed into 
the harbor of present-day Rio de Janeiro and 
named the harbor the River of January, it looked 
much as many North Americans imagine it today. 
There was no native civilization such as Cortez 
found in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. The in- 
habitants were savages. The country was over- 
grown with a dense vegetation. Gold was not to 
be had, and though Vespucci sailed for some two 
thousand miles along the coast, he found nothing 
of value save brazil wood, the abundance of which 
gave the country its name. 

This picture of Brazil applies to present-day 
Latin America with as much accuracy as a de- 
scription by De Soto might fit the Mississippi 
Valley of the present. 

The harbor of Rio, in fact, is judged to be the 
most beautiful in the world. At the south of its 
entrance, as one steams towards it from the sea, 
stands Sugar Loaf Mountain, rising some fifteen 
hundred feet above the shore. Beyond Sugar 
Loaf, the mountains stand, tier on tier, dark with 
heavy vegetation to their very summits. The 

39 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


mouth of the bay is but a mile in width, but its 
depth is great enough to admit the largest ocean 
liners. Through this channel one passes into the 
harbor itself—a beautiful, placid, expanse of 
water fifteen miles long and from two to seven 
miles wide, like some northern lake, dotted here 
and there with beautiful wooded islands and fleets 
of vessels, large and small. Off to the southwest, 
extending along a great peninsula, lies the city of 
Rio, itself. 

Rio de Janeiro is a city of revelations, of great 
schools and churches, railroads and trams, thea- 
ters and Chambers of Commerce. Its broad 
thoroughfares are paved and palm lined. Along 
the Avenida Central and other famous streets the 
business of a thriving, prosperous city is car- 
ried on with the hustling, traffic-jamming energy 
so characteristic of all things Western. In the 
shops of the narrow Rua de Ouvidor another 
pageant passes: women, gowned as in Paris, with 
organdies and colored silks, jewels and _ high- 
heeled shoes. Of an afternoon, with a brilliant 
sun slanting against the mountains and gray 
shadows lengthening under the palms, long, quiet 
avenues stretch alluringly to the hills, past rich 
chalets, where flowering tulip-trees are blooming 
and bougainvillea vines grow vagrantly beside the 
road; and at night, from the summit of Corco- 
vado, Rio is a fairy-land, fragrant and fragile and 

40 


Today's Latin America 


sprinkled with stars, from the colored lights of . 
the ships in the bay to the mountains that tower 
in the dark. This is Rio. 

This, too, is Buenos Aires, although Buenos 
is no fairy-land—unless one could also call 
Chicago that. For Buenos Aires, the capital of 
the Argentine Republic, is the fourth largest city 
in the Americas—a southern Chicago without the 
smoke, with buildings of French architecture, and 
gardens purely Spanish. But though there is 
beauty a-plenty, Buenos Aires, after all, is less a 
place of gardens than of docks and wharfs, of 
warehouses and heavy trucks, of subways and 
great newspapers, of freighters from almost any 
port and heavy trains with cattle, sheep, wheat, 
corn, and flax, bearing the wealth of the Repub- 
lic. B. A.—as the English-speaking inhabitants 
call it—is one of the world’s busiest cities. From 
its docks more than three times as much goods 
per capita is exported every year than from the 
United States. 

So, too, is Santiago—the capital of Chile. In 
Santiago there is the same Spanish beauty, and 
more of the Spanish languor. Less of the com- 
mercial stride of Buenos Aires and Rio, but more, 
perhaps, of social progress. If you doubt this 
social progress, I recommend a visit to the Club 
de Seforas. For beauty of appointment few, if 
any, women’s organizations in the world equal it. 

41 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


And for genuine pioneering the club is notable, 
for it was no ordinary innovation to set about the 
task of bringing the womanhood of Santiago 
abreast of the movements of the present day. 
There are, also, great schools in Santiago as in 
all of these southern cities—the Santiago College 
and Instituto Inglés and the Chilean Pedagogico, 
a coeducational institution. 

These are typical centers of the life of Latin 
America. They set the pace for the progress of 
the continent. And they walk—or run—abreast 
of the cities of the North, where a strange Anglo- 
Saxon malady has laid hold of a great nation and 
led to the misconception that no other people move 
so fast or so purposefully as we. 


The political evolution of Latin America, from 
the time of Pizarro and Cortez, has kept pace with 
the material progress of the continent. It is sig- 
nificant that good ideas and good inventions can- 
not be isolated. We seldom think of that fact. 
Let a Boston doctor give a practical demonstra- 
tion of general anesthesia, and the world’s sur- 
geons soon put the discovery to use. Let auto- 
mobiles appear, and before long much of the 
world goes riding forth on rubber wheels. Tele- 
phones, telegraphs, phonographs, tinned foods— 
no matter where they first appeared—have been 
put at the disposal of the entire civilized world. 

42 


Today's Latin America 


But when it comes to new ideas, we do not 
always realize how they spread to the ends of 
the earth and kindle sudden fires in unexpected 
places. The World War—with little question— 
was hurried to its conclusion by the force of the 
ideas and ideals of President Wilson, scattered 
across the enemy lines. ‘‘Self-determination’’ 
was a war phrase and most of us have forgotten 
it. But out in Korea, and among other subject 
peoples far and near, ‘‘self-determination’’ is a 
magic word that has unlocked doors of hope and 
aspiration. The period of the World War—de- 
spite the petty strifes and jealousies that clouded 
the atmosphere—was a period of great ideas. 

It so happened that the end of the eighteenth 
century was another such period. ‘‘All men are 
created free and equal’’—‘‘Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity.’? With such phrases revolutions were 
begun; old monarchies cast down and kingdoms 
of the people set up in both the Old World and 
the New. And in the Spanish realms of Latin 
America, no less than in the British Colonies to 
the north, the passion for freedom—a passion 
that never downs—was stirring men to glorious 
mad deeds and epoch-making enterprises. 

It is significant, too, that these enterprises, for 
the most part, were youth-led. In fact, through 
the whole history of the conquest and discovery 
of the Americas, and the revolutions that later 

43 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


set up free states, there run the fire and the 
courage and the reckless idealism of youth. The 
New World was conquered by young men, and 
young men laid the foundations of its free institu- 
tions. Columbus before he was thirty had his 
plans laid for his voyage, and the skepticism of 
his associates alone withheld him. Cortez was 
nineteen years of age when he left Spain for the 
New World and only thirty-three when his con- 
quest of Mexico began. Quesada was scarcely 
thirty when he received his commission as lieu- 
tenant-general and started for the exploration of 
the river Magdalena that led to the conquest of 
New Granada. Our own revolutionary leaders, 
hke Patrick Henry, were, many of them, under 
thirty. Miranda, the father of Latin American 
freedom, began his lifelong fight against Spain 
when a little over twenty. Simon Bolivar, the 
Liberator, when twenty-two years old ‘‘took a 
solemn oath to dedicate himself to the task of 
liberating America from the yoke of Spain.’’ 
Without the spirit of youth—indomitable and 
rash, thoughtless of the risks and, above all, un- 
conditionally idealistic—the building of the New 
World would have been long delayed. And the 
new conquests in this twentieth century will come 
when the same youth spirit goes into action. 
After all, the real perils to human progress are 
the product of later life. And youth, aflame with 
4:4 


i i i i 


Today's Latin America 


some great passion, provides the only hope that 
the fires of inspiration, in middle age, will not 
burn out. 

Spanish colonists of South America had no spe- 
cial cause for loving the mother country. Revolts 
were frequent, and the severity with which they 
were suppressed delayed, yet made greater, the 
revolutions that were inevitable. The crisis that 
finally led to the shattering of Spain’s New World 
Hmpire and the establishment of independent 
Latin republics first developed in Venezuela. 
Venezuela—named as ‘‘The little Venice’’—was 
well situated for this uprising. In the northern 
part of the continent the highways of the New 
World crossed its territory. Near the United 
States, the spirit of the American War for In- 
dependence electrified Venezuelan patriots. And 
among the restless Venezuelan lads who hated the 
irksome yoke of Spain was Francisco Miranda, 
who was born in the beautiful city of Caracas in 
1754. 

Young Miranda—after the fashion of the Span- 
ish aristocracy—went to school in his native city 
and probably to college there. His courses took 
him laboring through the prescribed studies— 
Latin, philosophy, law. And then, at the first 
chance, he joined the army, sailed for Spain, and 
purchased a captain’s commission in time to see 
action against the Moors of North Africa. From 

AS 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


North Africa he returned to Spain, spent tedious 
months in garrisons, studied revolutionary litera- 
ture, and ran amuck of the authorities. The re- 
sult was that, after campaigns in the West In- 
dies where he used his office as a means of secur- 
ing information to help him in the revolution he 
planned, he was ousted from the army. Out of 
the employ of Spain, Miranda became a roving 
revolutionist, seeking aid wherever aid seemed 
likely; driven from one country to another; fre- 
quently imprisoned; always persecuted but never 
relenting in the Gospel of Freedom that he 
preached. 

And Miranda’s Gospel of Freedom received 
great impetus from the American War for In- 
dependence. Miranda came north during the 
Revolution. He caught a vision of the high ideal- 
ism that animated the daring exponents of Amer- 
ican independence and his own youthful soul was 
aflamed anew. 

In London, so tradition has it, Miranda founded 
an underground society of revolutionists. Into 
the membership of this society came Simon Boli- 
var from Caracas, Bernardo O’Higgins from 
Chile, and José de San Martin from the Plata 
country. Night after night, in their secret meet- 
ing-place, Miranda infused these young patriots 
with his own zeal. The empire of Spain was 
tottering towards a fall, and these young hot- 

46 


ON es 


Today's Latin America 


bloods, with no power other than their own high 
faith and courage, were to push it, crumbling, to 
ruin. 

It was the ideal of Miranda to unite all of Latin 
America into one United States of South Amer- 
ica. For this ideal he fought to the very last. 
When he returned to Venezuela, in 1811, and was 
made a virtual dictator, it looked, for a time, as 
though his ambition might be realized. But jeal- 
ousies and suspicions arose against him. His 
cause was discredited. He fell into the hands of 
Spanish Royalists, was imprisoned, and later sent 
to Spain. Miranda became an old and broken 
man. His life, apparently, had been a fruitless 
one. He died on July 14, 1816, in a loathsome 
dungeon in Cadiz. 


But Miranda’s preaching had not been in vain. 
The seeds of revolution, which he had scattered 
far and wide, grew and could not be uprooted. 
Of those who carried on the torch that Miranda 
lighted Simon Bolivar is perhaps the most fa- 
mous. Bolivar, after the failure of Miranda, took 
refuge on the island of Curacao. There he laid 
plans for a march against the Royalists in Vene- 
zuela. Not only in his native country, but in the 
Argentine and other Latin American colonies, re- 
volts against Spain were in the making. Bolivar’s 
cause, therefore, progressed rapidly. The people 

47 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


were more and more determined to overthrow 
Spain and recruits for a revolutionary enterprise 
were not difficult to secure. 

Bolivar, with his plans matured, slipped quietly, 
one day, from the island of Curagao back to Vene- 
yuela. He organized a small handful of recruits 
in the first village he entered and with this poorly 
equipped and paltry force started out to destroy 
the power of Spain in Venezuela. His onward 
march was atriumph. In every village and town 
recruits flocked to his standard. And when at 
last he met the Royalist forces, the patriotic 
army could not be turned back. The Spanish 
troops were defeated, and on August 4, 1813, Boli- 
var entered Caracas in state. His triumphal car 
was drawn by twelve Venezuelan maidens, dressed 
in white and bearing the national colors. He 
was hailed by the exultant throngs as ‘‘The 
Liberator.’’ 

But his victory was short lived. The Royalists 
reorganized their forces, defeated Bolivar, and 
forced him to flee into New Granada—now Co- 
lombia—where he joined forces with the revolu- 
tionary party; and at the head of another patriot 
army he captured the capital, Bogota. But other 
reverses drove him from New Granada to refuge 
in the island of Jamaica. And while in the depths 
of despair because of his failures, encouraging 
messages came to him from Bernardo O’Higgins, 

48 


a 


‘NMOL LUICdVAS SIHL AJILYOA OL SGUVINVdS AHL AD LING TIVA AHL AO NOILYOd V 


\ HHL ‘OGNVNYAYT NVG 


VNGADVLAVS) HO TIV, 


a 











‘"VNVAVOVdOO NI HONNHO 
OLTOHLVO NVWOHX GIO NV dO LNOYA NI SNVIGNI NVIAIIO“ JO dOOND IVOIaKL V 


VNVdVOVdO)) LY HOWNHD 





Today's Latin America 


the champion of Chilean independence, and from 
San Martin, the great revolutionary general of 
the Argentine. Bolivar, with a will of steel, re- 
fused to give up his fight. In February, 1819, 
he again organized a Venezuelan army and at its 
head defeated the Royalists at the famous battle 
of Boyaca. 

Today a great rock marks the spot where, at 
the conclusion of this battle, Bolivar addressed 
his troops. And on this monument erected to the 
memory of Bolivar on the field of Boyaca are 
two significant inscriptions: ‘‘The Liberty of the 
New World is the Hope of the Universe’’ and 
‘‘The greatest of men is he who knows how to 
win Freedom for the rest.”’ 

More than a century has elapsed since the battle 
of Boyaca, and today, with different weapons 
and on other fields, the tide of the battle for 
freedom ebbs and flows. As much as at Boyaca, 
great generals today are needed to direct this 
fight, and courageous men and women to serve 
in the ranks of the patriot army. The problems 
of Latin America were no more fully solved at 
Boyaca or at Maipo—where the battle that 
secured independence for Chile was fought—or 
on the other fields where freedom was victorious 
than the problems of the new United States were 
solved when Cornwallis at Yorktown proffered 
his sword to Washington. 

49 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


The problems of the New Latin America vw nich 
we will study in this book were given a good gen- 
eral statement in the ‘‘Challenge’’* of the Mon- 
tevideo Congress, a great Christian Congress held 
in the spring of 1925 in Montevideo, the capital 
of Uruguay. 

‘‘More remarkable transformations are taking 
place in the social structure of the continent. 
Formerly there were only two classes, the rich 
and the poor, the highly educated and the illit- 
erate. While that condition existed there was 
little hope for the solution of South America’s 
many social and political problems. With the 
gradual development of the middle class, with 
the introduction among the laboring people of a 
new consciousness of their own rights, and with 
a new appreciation of social problems by the edu- 
cated classes,—most of which came about during 
and after the World War,—there is a breaking up 
of the old fixed castes and today the social system 
of South America is in the process of solution. 
Among university students,—a class which for- 
merly consisted chiefly of sons of government 
officials and members of privileged classes pre- 
paring themselves to continue the ruling and ex- 
ploiting of the great mass of peon labor,—many 
have recently changed their attitude and are now 


1 This Challenge is printed in Bulletin Number 2 of the Con- 
gress on Christian Work in South America, published by the 
Committee on Cooperation in Latin America. 


50 





Today's Latin America 


giving themselves to the education of the laborers 
and to the working out with them of a new demo- 
cratic conception of national life. 

‘“‘Large numbers of women heretofore pro- 
hibitea from participating in the solution of great 
social and educational problems because of their 
seclusive limitation to their own family circles 
have begun to take a part in the discussion of 
the great surging questions that are stirring their 
nations. Many women have entered industry. 
Even the lower-class women in some of these 
countries have come into a class consciousness 
and are now educating themselves—often with 
the help of their more fortunate sisters.’’ 

In effect this report goes on to say: 

Most significant of all is the new spiritual move- 
ment. In the beginning of the history of these 
republics all of them recognized a union between 
Church and State. In other words, the Roman 
Catholic Church was the state church, supported 
officially and endowed with political power and 
privilege. The antagonism of the official church, 
in many places, to universal public education and 
to many of the democratic ideas that are making 
headway in several of these countries has brought 
about a separation of large numbers of the more 
intelligent class from the church. This so-called 
intellectual group, because its program of democ- 
racy is so frequently fought by the state church, 

51 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


has often developed a spirit of hostility to all 
religion. 

A few years ago it looked as though these in- 
tellectuals were turning Latin America toward a 
materialistic view of life. Religion was scoffed 
at. At present, however, there is a marked re- 
vival of interest in spiritual things. It is more 
widely recognized that all life cannot be explained 
in terms of what we can see, and that back of 
the universe there is a guiding, directing force 
which men call God. Many of the great leaders 
among government officials, heads of universities, 
and distinguished publicists are now urging the 
necessity of finding a spiritual basis for national 
and personal life. 


It must be said, right here, that Evangelical 
Christianity, seeking to bring this spiritual life, 
is confronted with a situation in Latin America 
different from that which exists in many other 
sections of the world. Evangelical Christianity 
cannot go to Latin America as though bringing 
with it a wholly new truth. The name of Christ 
is not unfamiliar to the peoples of Latin America, 
however much we may disagree with the manner 
in which, often, His message has been presented. 
The Roman Catholic Church, though it has failed, 
doubtless, in many things, has, nevertheless, 
helped to prepare the way for the additional mes- 

52 


ESS 


Today's Latin America 


sage of a personal Christ which the Evangelicals 
seek to bring. 

The work of the Evangelical churches in Latin 
America had very insignificant beginnings. There 
were repeated failures. Schools were opened and 
then closed. Missionaries went out in twos and 
threes and progress was almost negligible. But 
from these insignificant beginnings during the 
last century, a really vital movement for higher 
standards of life has grown. This movement does 
not—probably never will—include the whole of 
Latin America. But it is helping to change the 
‘‘moral climate.’’ It is bringing added richness 
to the Christian message planted there several 
centuries ago by the Spaniards. 

Meanwhile the Evangelical work itself is grow- 
ing. In Brazil there are, among six leading Prot- 
estant denominations, 653 organized congrega- 
tions; 65,705 members in full communion; 106,000 
catechumens; 528 church buildings; 608 national 
ministers and evangelists; 190 candidates for the 
ministry; 800 lay officers in the Church; 167 for- 
eign missionaries; 7 theological seminaries with 
35 professors; 5,000 pupils in the mission schools; 
898 Sunday schools with 3,111 teachers and 53,107 
pupils. 

In some other countries, such as Ecuador, Co- 
lombia, and Central America, there has been no 
such significant growth. But even in those coun- 

53 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


tries a definite Evangelical program is being car- 
ried forward through churches, schools, and Bible 
distribution. 


In this book we shall have a good deal to say 
about the problems which constitute the challenge 
of the new day in Latin America. They represent 
the task of the Evangelical forces now at work 
there. It is necessary at this point that we should 
face a few of the general questions growing out 
of these problems, for which later we shall seek 
to find solutions. 

First, there are the economic problems. The 
wealth of Latin America—how will it be ex- 
ploited? Will the land continue to be held by the 
few or become the property of the many? Will 
an industrialism arise in these southern countries 
to condemn the man-power of the masses to the 
building of fortunes for the few? Will material- 
ism dominate the economic life and will labor be- 
come the slave of profit? Or, will the principle 
of service in industry be established? Will in- 
dustry become the agency of happiness and en- 
lightenment? Will wealth, widely distributed, be 
made a part of the foundation of human progress? 

Then, there are political problems. Factional 
strife, partisanship, and selfish ambitions have 
too frequently obstructed the development of 
democratic institutions in Latin America, as else- 

54 





Today's Latin America 


where. Leaders are needed who can look beyond 
the day into the future. Are these leaders in the 
making? Are forces at work to lift the govern- 
ments out of the morasses of petty politics to the 
plane of ordered progress? Are these same 
forces working in the international field? Is 
coercion or conciliation to be the dominant factor 
in the relationships between the states of the 
South? Are armies or courts to rule the future? 
Will bloodshed or the council table determine in- 
ternational issues? 

There are also social problems. What of the 
progress of education in South America? Is the 
caste system breaking down? Do the masses be- 
gin to share in the privileges of the aristocracy? 
What of the seventeen million Indians of Latin 
America and the thirty million people of mixed 
blood? Are there schools for them? Is society 
progressing towards a recognition of the princi- 
ples of equal opportunity, or are the doors of 
hope closed in the face of those who are not of 
the higher social classes? 

Finally, there are the religious problems. Su- 
perstition lies like a pall over many parts of 
Latin America. Religion, too often, has meant 
idolatry, ignorance, spiritual squalor, darkness. 
Is there a new religious outlook? Would it be 
better for Latin America if religion were done 
away with altogether? What part is religion 

55 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


playing in the new conquest of Latin America? 
What part can it play? 


Involved in all of these problems there is the 
question of the relation between Latin America 
and the United States. At present, in certain 
countries, the United States is widely looked upon 
as a friend. In some of the other republics, how- 
ever, this is not the case. A century ago, when 
James Monroe proclaimed the doctrine that has 
since borne his name, the United States was 
looked to by the peoples of the South as a counselor 
and friend. The institutions of South American 
states were modeled, many of them, after the 
fashion of the United States. The Northern Re- 
public had pioneered the way to independence and 
was reverenced because of that fact. 

The Monroe Doctrine, clearly enough, was pro- 
claimed as a means of self-protection for the 
United States. The encroachments of European 
powers in the Western Hemisphere, which threat- 
ened at the time, could only serve to menace the 
security of the United States. As a consequence, 
the nations of Europe were warned that any 
effort to secure territory in either of the Americas 
would be looked upon, by the United States, as 
an unfriendly act. For over a century, now, that 
doctrine, although it has not hampered the ex- 
pansion of the United States, has kept the two 

56 


Today's Latin America 


Western continents free from the imperial ad- 
vances of Kurope. 

Now—whether or not the facts justify the con- 
clusion—the peoples of Latin America have come 
to scoff at the Monroe Doctrine and regard with 
a good deal of suspicion the nation that sponsors 
it. In Central America and in our relationships 
with Mexico, the people of the United States have 
revealed less of the spirit of the ‘‘Big Brother’’ 
than of the ‘‘Big Stick.’’ The special interests 
of the United States—interests in oil and fruit 
and wealth in many forms—have appeared to call 
for first protection and the rights of smaller states 
receive only a secondary thought. Rightly or 
wrongly, cruisers and marines have come to sym- 
bolize to the average Latin American the interest 
of the United States in affairs south of the Rio 
Grande. 

No other problem before the Americas is more 
serious than this. The question of good-will— 
above all others—begins at home. No nation can 
safely go far abroad preaching international 
friendship unless it is able to live in friendliness 
with its own neighbors. Just what does the fu- 
ture hold in the relationship of the republics of 
the New World? They are the exponents of peace 
and democracy. Can they give proof, in their own 
associations, that the ideal of peace will work? 
That proof can only be found in practise. 

57 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


These, then, are some of the problems of Latin 
America. They are problems of the Americas 
and of the world. Here in the West is the great 
laboratory in which the experiment of free gov- 
ernments and equal social opportunity will be 
worked out. That experiment—probably the 
greatest ever undertaken in history—will require 
for its working new adventurers and will lead 
to new achievements—achievements no less thrill- 
ing and even more significant than those of 
Miranda and Bolivar. But there will be no final 
victory until together in the common enterprise 
the two Americas stand shoulder to shoulder. 


58 


IT 
Building a New Mexico 


Soutna of the Rio Grande,—from north of it, 
—‘‘greasers’’ and cactus; sand and shale-covered 
mountains; dirty villages and children; squatty, 
whitewashed houses; men on horseback, wide 
sombreros, clouds of dust; bandits; tarantulas. 

North of the Rio Grande,—from south of dt, 
—soldiers and skyscrapers; divorce, suicide; riots, 

gold; section-bosses; a tree, a rope, and something 
- swinging in the wind. 

And one picture is as accurate as the other! 

All of Mexico is no more to be pictured in terms 
of what one sees looking across the Rio Grande 
from El Paso, Texas, into Juarez, Chihuahua, 
than the United States is to be described by the 
accounts of it that one reads in certain news- 
papers or sees portrayed in certain movie films. 

In fact, the average intelligent young Mexican 
suddenly transported into a Middle West com- 
munity of the United States would probably have 
fewer surprises in store for him than the average 
intelligent young American, who suddenly found 
himself set down in Mexico City in the famous 
Valley of Mexico. The last day’s journey from 
the American border to Mexico’s capital is 
through a land of beauty and romance, Villages 

59 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


overgrown with flowers fly past like a southern 
California panorama. Before each house, how- 
ever tiny, is a tinier garden fenced with organ 
cactus, where red hibiscus and pink myrtle grow. 
Atop each roof stand graceful Spanish urns. 
And narrow, flower-banked balconies give hint of 
many things—night, with the slice of a new moon 
tipping the housetops, a dark-eyed maiden and a 
black mantilla, a guitar and someone singing from 
the street below. 

And the City of Mexico is not a ‘‘Capital of 
Revolutions.’? It is, rather, a modern city. Its 
buildings and its broad avenues and beautiful 
parks are a gracious mingling of French and 
Spanish architectural design. In the newer sec- 
tions of the city there are many small residences 
built bungalow style, after the approved fashion 
of California. Trolley lines—the cars made in 
the United States—stretch out into the suburban 
districts, and in the city itself Fords and Pack- 
ards—and all the lot between—race as recklessly 
as in the cities of the United States. With an 
estimated population of 750,000, there are said to 
be 40,000 automobiles in the City of Mexico, 
alone. 

It is the Valley of Mexico, where the capital 
city is located, that provides the very center of 
the history of Mexico. The Valley is a vast basin 
about fifty miles long and forty miles wide with 

60 


Building a New Mezaico 


an average elevation of from 7,500 to 8,000 feet 
above the sea. It is thought that, at one time, the 
floor of this basin was the crater of a volcano 
whose walls were the surrounding mountains. 
Within this broad basin there were once five 
great land-locked lakes on which the Aztecs raised 
their famous ‘‘floating gardens.’’ Now the only 
remaining lake of any appreciable size is Lake 
T'excoco, near Mexico City. 

The Valley is completely surrounded by moun- 
tain ramparts that wall it in, snow-capped, to the 
very clouds. Above the range stand Popocatepetl 
and Iztaccihuatl—silent sentinels. 

To this Valley of Mexico swept succeeding in- 
vasions. Down from the mountains they came— 
little-known peoples—centuries before the white 
man came to this ancient territory to call it the 
New World and claim it for himself. And each 
succeeding invasion, apparently, arrived at this 
garden basin and stopped. Here the ancient cap- 
itals were built, altars were erected, and rulers 
held imperial sway with all the pomp of barbar- 
ism. Three of these invasions—the Toltec, the 
Aztec, and the Spanish—are of particular interest. 

Out of the shadows of history—shadows lighted 
by many and fascinating traditions—come the 
Toltecs to the Valley of Mexico. Some fifty miles 
to the north of Mexico City, sometime about 
700 a.p., they built their capital city of Tula, the 

61 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


ruins of which still remain. These Toltecs—In- 
dians, they were—are depicted in stories as gen- 
tle-mannered, intelligent barbarians; wise im 
peace, cunning and cruel in war. To the Toltecs, 
when their golden age was dawning, came a white 
man—so tradition runs—who stayed with them 
for twenty years and brought prosperity to their 
fields, wealth to their cities, and beauty to their 
hills. At the end of twenty years this white god 
sailed away on a raft of serpent skins, after tell- 
ing loyal followers that at some distant day an- 
other white man would come to the Valley of 
Mexico.* 

But in time the Toltee’s power waned. As the 
tribe began to deteriorate, other Indians, the Chi- 
chimecs,—a group of tribes much more barbaric 
than the Toltecs,—invaded the realm. After a 
prolonged conflict the Toltecs were forced to sur- 
render. The Chichimecs began at once to adopt 
some of the more advanced customs of their con- 
quered enemies and to enjoy some of the results 
of their higher civilization. 

During this period, when the Chichimecs were 
in power, other tribes of Indians were migrating 
from the north toward the Valley of Mexico. 


1 This story may or may not have foundation in fact. But true 
or false, the belief in it among Indians of a later day helped 
to make possible the conquest of Mexico by Cortez in the sixteenth 
century, when with his handful of troops he marched against 
the empire of the Aztecs. 


62 


Building a New Mexico 


Among these was one particularly despised. It 
was driven about from one spot to another and 
finally took refuge on the islands of Lake T'ex- 
coco. These Indians lived chiefly on fish and in- 
sects, and served the neighboring tribes ag slaves. 
They were the Aztecs—destined to become the 
rulers of Mexico and to give the country its name. 

Before they had lived long in the Valley of 
Mexico, the Aztecs proved their fighting ability. 
Sometime about the year 1428, in a great battle, 
they established their supremacy over the sur- 
rounding tribes. From then until 1519—when 
Cortez brought Spanish rule—they governed most 
of the territory from the Valley of Mexico to the 
Gulf, south to Yucatan, and north nearly to the 
Rio Grande. 

In this empire the Aztecs ruled and developed 
a remarkable civilization. Their trade was thriv- 
ing and widespread. The City of Mexico, their 
capital, was an overflowing market where mer- 
chandise from many places was bought and sold. 
Beyond the city itself the land was well cultivated 
for these Indians were, for their day, skilled agri- 
culturists. At the time of Cortez, the govern- 
ment, ruled by Moctezuma, was well ordered, havy- 
ing written laws and a judicial system which was 
modern in many respects. The religion of the 
Aztecs was exceedingly repulsive, however, and 
was characterized by human sacrifices. The Span- 

63 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


iards spared no effort in their attempt to destroy 
this worship. Many of their temples, however, 
with their sacrificial stones decorated with hide- 
ous carvings, remain as mute though eloquent wit- 
nesses to this barbaric cult. 

We have already followed Cortez in his ad- 
vance through the empire of Moctezuma. It was 
on November 8, 1519, that he first entered the City 
of Mexico. His conquest did not last, however, 
for the enraged natives soon drove the Spaniards 
from the city. But two years later Cortez broke. 
the last resistance of the Indians, entered the city, 
made it his capital, and established the Spanish 
rule that was to extend for three centuries. 

In the year 1821 Mexico became independent 
of Spain—but even now, after more than a cen- 
tury of independence, the hand of Spanish influ- 
ence still rests heavily upon the country. Fol- 
lowing Cortez, there came from the Old Country 
a long succession of Viceroys to govern Mexico. 
These aristocrats, frequently ill-fitted for colonial 
or any other sort of administration, hindered more 
than they helped the progress of the great Span- 
ish colony. With them came Spanish grandees 
who transplanted the feudal system of Kurope’s 
Middle Ages into the soil of the New World. 
Wealth was amassed in vast quantities. Gal- 
leons, loaded with gold, sailed from the mines of 
Mexico to enrich the too often depleted treasuries 

64 





THe Harpor or Rio DE JANEIRO 


‘CTHYOM HHL NI SHONGAV TOAILAVAd LSOW AHL JO ANO UA OL GIVS SI ‘ONI 
-C1IINd SSAYDNOO AHL SGNVLS HOIHM AO GVAH FHL LV OAV], AG VGINGAY VT 


Sauly SONHNgG ‘ONIGIING SSAYNNOD 





Building a New Mexico 


of the Spanish monarchs. Pirates infested the 
Spanish Main and looted the cities of the coast. 
Indifferent, cruel, loving gold, and the things. 
which it brought more than justice or human prog- 
ress, these Spanish overlords living in licentious 
leisure left an indelible stamp upon the life of the 
Mexican nation. 

Among those who came to rule Mexico, there 
were, of course, some who proved noble excep- 
tions to this general type of selfish autocrat. The 
first Viceroy, Mendoza, who was appointed in 
1535, was one of these exceptions. During the 
fifteen years that he ruled Mexico a great deal 
was accomplished for the people by measures that 
were both wise and kindly administered. The 
second Viceroy, Don Luis de Velasco, was also a 
just administrator. His action in bringing about 
the liberation of 150,000 Indian slaves at work in 
the mines won for him the title of Emancipator. 

But toward the end of the sixteenth century 
there descended upon Mexico the influence of the 
Inquisition, and through two centuries and a half 
the persecutions practised at the instigation of the 
Dominicans stored up a reservoir of hatred that. 
did much to bring about the downfall of Spanish 
rule. 

The Dominican priests had arrived together 
with the gaily decorated autocrats who came out 
to rule Mexico. A great army of them came, with 

65 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


the avowed purpose of converting the country to 
Christianity. There is no denying the beneficial 
influence of those early Christian pioneers. Their 
courage, their unselfish zeal for the Church, and 
their ceaseless labors wrought much good among 
the Indian population of the country. This must 
be conceded. In fact, any other attitude is merely 
an indication of that inter-Christian hostility 
which today is a perilous obstacle to Christian 
progress. An open-mindedness among Protes- 
tants to the constructive, Christian achievements 
of Roman Catholicism in Mexico or elsewhere, is 
the only possible starting point for a fair criticism 
of the influence of the Roman Church. And in the 
early days in Mexico the priests sent out from 
Spain achieved much that was good for the people. 

But Roman Catholicism has not kept abreast of 
the developments in Mexico. It is undeniable, in 
fact, that almost every liberal movement—politi- 
cal, economic, or social—that has arisen in recent 
times in Mexico has been obliged to face the con- 
eerted hostility of Roman Catholic influence. The 
old land-owning aristocracy had the support of the 
Church. When the Revolution sought to break 
up the vast estates and return to the people what 
was rightfully their own, the Church objected. 
When the movement to strike the chains of peon- 
age from the masses was begun, the Church op- 
posed this reform. The efforts to popularize lib- 

66 


Building a New Mezico 


eral education likewise met with opposition from 
the Church. Social reforms—such as the granting 
of woman suffrage and the extensions of the rights 
of labor unions—were bitterly fought by the 
Church autocracy. 

The power of the Church during the last cen- 
tury has endeavored to block, wherever possible, 
the advance of Democracy. This is not difficult to 
understand. In the foundation stones of cathedral 
and church in Mexico there is written the word 
‘*Autocracy.’’? And religious autocracy has scant 
chance for survival in a community that revolts 
against political autocracy. 

Thus, one of the first facts that emerged after 
the Independence of Mexico was declared in 1821 
was that popular government would never stand a 
chance so long as the Roman Catholic Church, 
which claimed the spiritual allegiance of ninety- 
five per cent of the Mexican people and controlled 
two thirds of the productive wealth of the coun- 
try, was allowed to hand down its dictates and 
demand compliance with them. ‘The realization 
of this fact precipitated a real struggle. Catho- 
lic influence, moreover, was largely instrumental 
in bringing about the intervention of Napoleon 
IIT, who sought to extend the power of France 
over Mexico. But in 1867 the liberal patriots 
triumphed. Maximilian, sent out by France to 
govern the land, fell before the firing squad at 

67 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Querétaro. From that day nineteenth-century 
ideas—political, economic, and social—were to 
have their first real chance in Mexico. 

In our further study of Latin America we shall 
frequently come into touch with the influence of 
the Roman Catholic Church. It is needful that we 
remember the constructive contributions of 
Catholicism to these southern nations. It is even 
more important, however, that we know that in 
this twentieth century, in spite of the liberal ring 
of Catholic believers, almost the whole weight of 
the Church officially is thrown into the balance 
against the rising tides of liberal thought and 
democracy. 

In addition to this religious opposition, Mexico 
struggles against another enormous handicap. 
The early Spanish grandees, whom we have seen 
come out from Spain to line their pockets with 
New World gold, were land-grabbers of the first 
order. In every alluring valley of Mexico and 
on every promising hilltop they sat them down 
and claimed, in the name of Spain and the Church, 
possession of all the land they looked upon that 
it suited their fancy to annex. That the Indians 
already occupied the territory was altogether too 
simple a fact for serious consideration. Conse- 
quently, most of the land of Mexico, even now, 
is in the hands of a very few landowners. 

It is no exaggeration to say that for four hun- 

68 


Building a New Mezico 


dred years less than ten thousand families have 
owned Mexico. By this ‘‘ownership’’ is not meant 
the ownership of the ward boss who, in our large 
cities, dominates a great population by his influ- 
ence and political machine. Ownership as applied 
to Mexican land has been a personal, hand-me- 
down possession. Land barons were the feudal 
lords of the country. They not only kept the land 
—they also kept, in virtual servitude, the vast 
majority of peons who worked for them. 

These haciendas, it must be understood, were not 
little homestead plots. In size, they were states— 
self-supporting states. There were some 300 of 
them with an estimated area of 25,000 acres each; 
116 had no less-than 62,500 acres; 51 had 75,000 
acres; and 11 are said to have contained 250,000 
acres each.t In the province of Chihuahua one 
notorious character is said to have patched to- 
gether in one estate over 6,000,000 acres, a terri- 
tory that requires eight hours to cross by train, 
and is equal in size to the republic of Costa Rica. 
In Morelos, 33 people owned the entire state.’ 

The measures introduced by Juarez, the ‘‘Pa- 
triot President,’’ attempted to remedy this land 
injustice. But, with the lapse of time, the fervor 
of that period in the early nineteenth century was 
forgotten, and when Porfirio Diaz was made Presi- 

1 Land Systems of Mexico, The. George McCutcheon McBride. 

2 Social Revolution in Mexico, The. HE. A. Ross. p. 82. 

69 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


dent, in 1876, a reign of despotism began that 
ended in 1910 with the land situation worse than 
before. 

Between 1910 and 1920 revolutions and counter- 
revolutions kept the country in a state of constant 
turmoil. Bandits infested certain districts; 
scheming politicians, with armies to back them, 
infested other districts. The decade was one of 
strife and disorder, and there was little improve- 
ment until 1920, when Obregon came to power. 

But the tide has turned. Intelligent and patri- 
otic Mexicans know well enough that the country 
can never be great until the people own the land 
themselves. Conditions under which the peons 
were kept in illiteracy and bondage must be com- 
pletely changed. And conditions are being 
changed. The new constitution of 1917 provides 
for the breaking up of these vast estates into 
smaller farms, to be turned over to the people. 
With this breaking up of estates, agricultural edu- 
cation is being introduced. The owners of the old 
haciendas did not live upon them and cared but 
little whether or not they were well managed. 
Medieval methods of agriculture were followed. 

Under Obregon, agricultural education during 
1922 alone was provided for more than 100,000 
Mexican children. In the hacienda of Chapingo 
an agricultural college has been established with 
a six-year course along the most advanced lines. 

70 


Building a New Mewico 


Two paragraphs from the charter of this school 
are significant: 

‘‘We are trying to form here a nucleus of peo- 
ple that believe in work, considering it as the 
sacred and only instrument for human coopera- 
tion. From here there will go forth men, free and 
sane, sons of the earth to which they owe all and 
for which they believe they have the rugged and 
silent devotion that only great things deserve. 

‘<This school holds forth a human ideal of sim- 
ple cooperation and gentle comradeship among 
those that work the land without trying to push 
them toward the abyss of great agricultural ex- 
ploitation which needs, to flower and prosper, the 
suffering of enormous multitudes of hopeless 
wage-slaves. What we want here is that the 
farmer be his own master, that he be a friend to 
his community, that he be the help and basis of 
the peasant citizenry.’’ * 

An important fact in regard to the land dis- 
tribution must be added. This redistributed land 
is held, not by individuals, but by the community, 
in what is called the ejzdo. Thus, in Yucatan, an 
individual can neither buy nor sell this com- 
munal land. He has only the right to work the 
land and enjoy the benefits of what he produces. 
Up to a recent date more than one half of the vil- 
lages of Yucatan (more than eighty) have re- 

1The Survey Graphic. May, 1924. p. 152. 

71 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


ceived communal land. About eighty thousand 
heads of families will thus receive for farming 
purposes a share of community land. This pro- 
gram amounts, virtually, to the nationalization of 
land. It is quite possible that it may not prove 
wholly successful and that private ownership will 
eventually be established, but nationalization of 
the land has proved a mighty step forward from 
the old system of land monopoly. 


Along with this redistribution of land a more 
adequate program of education has been intro- 
duced. Education is the key to almost every- 
thing in Mexico—as elsewhere. Until the mind of 
the people—the masses of the people—is lifted 
out of the morasses of superstition, enlightened 
politics or sound economics or real religion cannot 
be well established. Thus it is altogether impor- 
tant to know that, since 1917, the leaders of the 
new revolution in Masino have decreed a pr ogra 
of education for all the people. 

This is no easy undertaking. Aristocracy, 
whether social or financial, does not breed a belief 
in the possibilities of the masses. Many Amer- 
icans who are in Mexico to exploit the country’s 
resources argue against the education of the 
peons. The great landowners who still remain 
argue along the same lines. The reason for such 
conidence in the belief that the unenlightened can- 

72 


Building a New Mevwico 


not be made to see is not far to seek. Educate 
the peons and you will make them discontented 
with their miserable lot. Make them discontented 
and they will demand justice, decent wages, decent 
living conditions, and a chance to advance. Once 
such ‘‘impossible’’ concessions are made, the 
day when fortunes can be plucked from the thorny 
hands of the enslaved peons will be past. 

But despite this opposition, educational reform 
has made rapid progress since 1917 in Mexico. 
There is a Department of Education in the na- 
tional government, with representation in the Cab- 
inet—a progressive step which the United States 
has never taken. Into the most remote sections of 
Mexico education is being carried by educational 
**missionaries,’’ as they are called. The individ- 
uals are sent out by the Government. They are the 
pioneers of enlightenment. In some Indian hovel, 
with no lamp, few books, and very little interest, 
a government missionary begins to teach. The 
walls of the hovel are pushed down until the il- 
literate Indians begin to see something of the 
world beyond. Their interest is aroused. They 
want a school. Sometimes they are too poor to 
build it themselves, and the Government, though 
cramped by inadequate funds, builds the school. 
Thus by painstaking, village-to-village work the 
gospel of understanding is spread. 

And in many small cities public libraries have 

73 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


been opened. Day and night—but particularly 
night—these places are thronged. During the last 
three years the Department of Education has pur- 
chased three hundred thousand books from Spain 
for these libraries. And it is not jazz literature 
that is distributed. Fifty thousand copies of Don 
Quixote have been purchased; twenty-five thou- 
sand of the classics printed; eight thousand copies 
of Homer were sold in one year at one peso each. 
In addition, over one million copies of a first 
reader have been published. And the Minister of 
Education recently secured a publication of a 
special edition of the New Testament, which was 
sent to every library in the country. 


Another wave in this rising tide of Mexican 
progress is the growth of the power of organized 
labor. In the United States, too often, we have 
been misled into thinking of labor unions as anti- 
American institutions under the leadership of in- 
dolent rascals whose sole purpose is to destroy the 
comfort of the country’s capitalistic benefactors. 
Nothing could be further from the truth. Labor 
has blundered. But the blunders of labor can 
hardly weigh so heavily in the scales of justice as 
the blunders of the employers of labor. And 
until labor took the field with an organization of 
its own, industrial democracy was an idle dream. 
The sons and daughters of the Mexican or the 

74 


Building a New Mewico 


American working-man look upon the labor union, 
and rightly, as probably the most worth-while of 
all social organizations. That is because the labor 
unions, to the laboring man and his family, con- 
stitute the power to secure justice. When labor 
organizations are abandoned, we can be sure that 
one of two things has happened—either capital 
and labor have come into a state of such complete 
harmony that the rights of both will be protected 
without separate organization; or democracy will 
be on the wane, the voice of the working classes 
silenced, and industrial feudalism reestablished. 
There are, at the present time, eight hundred 
thousand workers in the organized labor move- 
ment of Mexico. This includes farm workers as 
well as city workers. Heretofore, with the excep- 
tion of the Roman Catholic Church, the army con- 
stituted the one great social organization of Mex- 
ico. The rise of labor to a place of power has 
brought a wholly new element into the social life 
of the country. The influence of this element 
is on the side of democracy and against the dicta- 
tion of either religious or military autocracy. 
Whether or not he made a good governor,—and I 
have little doubt that he did,—it indicates a real 
step in advance from the state of autocratic power 
when a shoemaker, Gasca, not long ago was gov- 
ernor of Mexico City. Labor organized as it is in 
Mexico stands as a guarantee that peace and con- 
75 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


ciliation, justice and democracy, will have a chance 
in the affairs of the nation. 

In the Alameda—the Central Park of the City 
of Mexico—there stands a statue. Its title is 
‘‘Malgré tout.’’ Represented in this statue is a 
woman lying upon the ground. Her feet are 
shackled with heavy chains. Her hands are cru- 
elly tied behind her back. She is crushed and 
helpless. And yet, the figure is one of life. 
Against those chains is thrown the whole force of 
this woman’s body. She strains tensely. Her 
knees bend as if to rise and cast off the iron that 
binds her. There is nothing sullen in her eyes— 
rather, the light of faith, a ight that finally will 
triumph despite the heavy hand of the past and 
the shackles of the present. 

This statue is a picture of present-day Mexico. 
A newly awakened people are rising from the slav- 
ery of the past. They are shaking off the chains 
which have bound them through four centuries. A 
new nation is in the making south of the Rio 
Grande. Into that nation there has gone the influ- 
ence of Evangelical Christianity. This is not an 
incidental fact. It is a vital factor—one of the 
most vital—which will determine the Mexico of 
tomorrow. In the United States the influence of 
Christianity is taken for granted. The church is 
just around the corner. Religion is heard—if not 
practised—in every walk of life. Christianity pro- 

76 


Building a New Mexico 


vides the keystone in the temple of American 
democracy. Most of us living in America never 
stop to realize that without Christian pulpits and 
Christian schools and Christian homes the United 
States would be a vastly different, a vastly in- 
ferior, place. 

It is true as much in Mexico as in the United 
States or any other part of the world that national 
strength of the finer kind can never be found un- 
less there is found also a religious strength that 
meets the practical day-by-day needs of the peo- 
ple. After all, most of us need some stronger 
influence than money or home or patriotism to 
keep our lives constantly true to the best. And 
when one reads history with care and not with 
prejudice, it becomes apparent that, despite its 
frequent distortions, no other force in human 
affairs has been so powerful as religion for the 
maintaining of individuals and communities at 
their best. So the new Mexico needs religion— 
not religion that decrees certain ceremonies and 
forms of worship and lets it go at that, but a re- 
ligion that reaches out to the heart of the indi- 
vidual; that enters that individual’s life; that 
meets his intellectual doubts; and, at the same 
time, gives him an inescapable responsibility for 
helping those with whom he comes into contact. 

Now many of the liberal leaders of the new 
Mexico are fraukly irreligious. That, we may 

77 


Looking Ahead wth Latin America 


say, is unfortunate. But it is a fact that reflects 
as much upon religion as upon the individuals. 
For the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico has 
represented the only type of religion that many 
of these people know. It is a truth that cannot be 
denied that the Catholic Church has consistently 
opposed the liberal movements for the making of 
a new Mexico which I have been describing. Com- 
ing into contact with a church that has stood 
against the spread of social justice, these leaders 
have turned from religion in disgust. And if we 
cannot bring to these leaders a faith that will prove 
a source of strength for their task of rebuilding 
Mexico, then we dare not criticize their unbelief. 
A Protestantism that fails to link itself with 
the forces making for a new Mexico has little busi- 
ness expending its money and its energy in the 
country. 

But Protestantism is linking itself to the new 
Mexico. Protestant influence has been and re- 
mains a beacon to guide the leaders of enlighten- 
ment who are seeking to transform the mind and 
the spirit of the people. Let me quote one trained 
observer. Edward A. Ross, professor of sociology 
at the University of Wisconsin, declares: 

‘*As one goes about visiting the public elemen- 
tary schools, the eye lights upon much that is 
depressing. Rooms ill lighted, tiled floors broken 
and full of holes, bare splotched walls, poor black- 

78 


Building a New Mevico 


boards, no charts or teaching apparatus, three 
children crowded into old-fashioned seats meant 
for two, no playgrounds save the diminutive 
paved patio, from forty to sixty pupils for one 
teacher, exercises disturbed by noises from the 
narrow, dark street... . I wondered whether it 
would not be better to let them play all day out 
on the hillside in the sun even though they grew up 
illiterate... . 

‘*As one passes from such a school to an Amer- 
ican mission school with skylights, bright, pic- 
ture-hung walls, fine blackboards, gay charts, 
good wooden floors, one desk to a child, and only 
twenty to thirty children to a teacher, it is borne 
in upon one what a service the missions are ren- 
dering in holding before the Mexican masses an 
example of what a school should be.’ 2 

The Protestant missionary, according to Charles 
A. Thomson, ‘‘has made a distinct contribution 
to the functioning of political democracy in Mex- 
ico. . . . His schools have also rendered excellent 
service. They have built up a group which, es- 
caping from the intellectual straight of author- 
ity, is set free to think for itself. . . . The Prot- 
estants in their struggle for individual religious 
freedom may have been led to a keener apprecia- 
tion of social and political freedom. Anyway, in 
Mexico’s recent social revolution, 1911-1921, they 

* Social Revolution in Mexico, The. E. A. Ross. pp. 157-158. 

79 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


played a part out of all proportion to their num- 
bers. ... The stimulation of social conscience, 
the recognition of social responsibility,’’ is noted 
as a further achievement of the missionary. ‘‘He 
has proclaimed the responsibility of the fortunate 
for the unfortunate.’’* 

With all these constructive achievements, the 
Evangelical work in Mexico is very limited; but 
in every center where the Evangelical Movement 
is represented, one finds new light, a changed com- 
munity spirit, an unwillingness to be content with 
the old darkness, and a determination to begin, at 
home, the big job of uplifting the nation. 

It is no easy business being a Protestant in 
Mexico. Persecutions are not uncommon even 
now. Within the last year stories that can 
scarcely be denied have come from Mexico of the 
treatment of Protestants at the hands of Roman 
Catholics whose anger has been lashed by the fury 
of the priest against the ‘‘unbelievers.’’ A young 
lad in a village north of Mexico City was stoned 
to death before the Catholic church by a crowd 
that had just come from worship there. Two 
other young Protestants near Puebla at about the 
same time narrowly escaped death at the hands of 
a priest-incited mob. In each case freedom was 
promised if these young men would profess the 

1“The Missionary from the U. S. A.” ©. A. Thomson. 
Survey Graphic. May, 1924. 

80 


Building a New Mexico 


Oatholic faith. But another faith burned too 
strongly in their lives to be thus snuffed out by 
the fear of death. They preferred martyrdom to 
the betrayal of their convictions. 

If we believe, as a study of the facts will lead us 
to believe, that Mexico cannot be remade without 
the help of a vital religious force, then we can see 
clearly that the courage of these Protestant be- 
lievers constitutes the hope of the nation. Their 
courage, their unselfishness, their belief in the es- | 
tablishment of God’s kingdom in this very Mexico 
where they are living, are filling a reservoir of 
strength upon which the country must rely for its 
rebuilding. 

Here in the United States we are seldom called 
upon to give reasons for the faith that is in us. 
Even less often are we forced to show the courage 
of our convictions. The price we pay for our 
faith is a paltry sum. South of the Rio Grande 
are men and women who today are facing death 
as Christian pioneers. Dangers of that sort do 
not assail us. We are so secure that we become 
indifferent. But can our own faith survive if, 
having found religious freedom, we fail to put all 
that we possess at the disposal of those who are 
still engaged in that bitter struggle? 


81 


IV 
Youth and the New Latin America 


Hava pe LA Torre is a Peruvian. But he is not, 
at present, living in Peru. He is still a university 
student. But he has been exiled from his native 
land. He is not a criminal. But he is President 
of the Peruvian Student Federation, and as Pres- 
ident of an organization so powerful he is a force 
to be reckoned with. When the Student Federa- 
tion spoke out in no uncertain terms against cer- 
tain measures the Government had introduced, 
things were made too hot for Haya de la Torre 
and he was driven from the country. 

It happened this way. The Government of 
Peru, being strongly under Roman Catholic in- 
fluence, announced one day that it was planning a 
great ceremony to dedicate the Republic to the 
Sacred Heart of Jesus. The students got wind 
of this proposal. They opposed it. The Church 
was opposing liberalism and reform, and they re- 
fused to see their country thus acknowledge its 
servitude to such an organization. 

So Haya de la Torre and his assistants wrote 
pamphlets. They outlined the influence of the 
Church in Peru. They proclaimed that this was 
a time to do away with religious and all other 
autocracy. These pamphlets they secretly printed. 

82 


Youth and the New Latin America 


They concealed them on their persons and, of a 
sudden, in many Peruvian cities, the pamphlets 
made their appearance. 

The people read them. The Government was 
alarmed. But Haya de la Torre was not dis- 
turbed. He organized a huge mass-meeting at 
the University. The working-men, in close sym- 
pathy with the students, joined in the affair. 
When it was over, they all trooped out together 
—to face the government soldiers. The soldiers 
fired on the crowd. A student, a laborer, and a 
policeman were killed. The soldiers rushed the 
crowd. Haya de la Torre was captured. The 
Government bought him a ticket and placed him 
aboard a ship bound for Hamburg. 

But Haya de la Torre was not so easily de- 
ported. Before reaching Panama he had enlisted 
passengers in his support. He landed at Panama. 
From there he made his way to Cuba, where the 
students hailed him with enthusiasm and made 
him honorary President of the Cuban Student 
Federation. From Cuba he went to Mexico where 
the Minister of Education, Dr. Vasconcelos, gave 
him a royal welcome. Haya de la Torre today 
is the spokesman for the embattled youth of Latin 
America. | 

The fact that the spirit of Latin American youth 
is mobilizing for action on the serious problems 
confronting the continent is of very great im- 

83 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


portance. We have already seen that the con- 
quest of the New World was begun and carried 
through by the spirit of youth. A little study 
of history will indicate that great Reformations 
or Renaissance movements are not initiated by 
men long past their youth. Young people are 
scoffed at and consigned to the antechamber of 
things worth while and told to wait until, in the 
fulness of maturity, they can safely be admitted 
to the council rooms where the world’s real prob- 
lems are threshed out. But it is a fact that can- 
not be controverted that the world’s great deci- 
sions have been made and its great movements 
begun when youth has broken out of that ante- 
chamber and into the audience room and aggres- 
sively asserted its presence. So it is a matter 
of great significance that the student youth of 
Latin America is standing shoulder to shoul- 
der in the fight to establish enlightenment and 
democracy. 

But when you talk about the student youth of 
Latin America you include only a very small frac- 
tion of the youth of these countries. No chain 
has been so great a drag upon the new life of 
Latin America as that of illiteracy. No amount 
of religious superstition can provide a substitute 
for mental enlightenment. And superstition, too 
often, has held the place in these southern coun- 
tries that education should have occupied. Augus- 

84 


Youth and the New Latin America 


tin Alvarez says, ‘‘South America lives by light- 
ing candles to the saints in order to see who are 
the ones to work the miracles, while it does not 
kindle lights in the minds of the children in order 
to illuminate the way.’’ 

From the days of Spanish rule down to the 
present period of Independence, education has 
been under the almost exclusive control of the 
Church. The Church, however, made little effort 
to bring education to the masses. Those who 
were supposed to represent superior ability—who 
too often were identified because of their social 
position and wealth—were given the benefits of 
learning. Popular education was unheard of and, 
when there arose new governments with the in- 
terests of the people at heart, the old forces that 
had sponsored the policy of exclusive enlighten- 
ment lined up against the spread of learning. 

In every Latin American country, therefore, 
most of the individuals whom one meets in the 
rural communities can neither read nor write. 
Exception must be made, however, for Uruguay 
and Argentina, where persistent educational cam- 
paigns have lifted the literacy of the people to 
approximately fifty per cent. If one goes into 
a home—say, for instance, in the republic of 
Colombia—there may be eight members in the 
family. Of those eight individuals, father and 
mother and six children, it might be possible to 

85 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


find one who could write. For that in many 
countries is about the average of literacy, one 
literate to every seven illiterates. 

In 1912, through all Latin America, only one 
person in twenty of the population was in school. 
In Germany, at that time, one person in six was 
in school, and in Japan one in seven. A census 
recently taken in a certain section of Brazil in- 
dicated that out of three thousand people only 
thirteen could sign their names. In Heuador, for 
every pupil in a primary school there are two 
thousand people not in school. In the educational 
system of Kcuador there are no girls’ high schools 
and only two girls in the entire republic are in 
the University. 

According to the rector of an Argentine uni- 
versity : ‘‘Ten thousand persons do all the think- 
ing and directing for the eight or nine million 
Argentines. Consumers of French novels may 
number one hundred thousand, but the readers of 
serious, non-technical books are between two 
thousand and four thousand.’’? 

The city of New York, alone, spends more 
money on its schools than do all of the govern- 
ments of Latin America combined. Detroit ex- 
pends more, each year, for night schools and play- 
ground work than does the republic of Haiti on 
its entire educational program. And in Cuba, 

1 South America Today. 8. G. Inman. p. 43. 

86 


Youth and the New Latin America 


where the United States, in 1902, left a centralized 
educational system, there has been a great de- 
terioration in educational standards and in the 
work that is actually being accomplished. The 
United States, of course, has been at the job 
longer than these countries—but even considering 
that fact the contrast is significant. 

The most aggressive force for the wiping of 
this blot of illiteracy from the map of Latin 
America at the present time is that of the stu- 
dents, themselves. This, of course, was not al- 
ways the case. For generations the students have 
been recruited, for the most part, from the upper 
classes of Latin American society. They have 
always exerted a considerable influence in local 
and state affairs. But this influence, up to very 
recent times, has been on the side of reaction. 
Young men in the universities have merely echoed 
the disdain of their elders for democracy and ‘‘the 
masses.’’ In 1910, for instance, in the streets of 
Buenos Aires, students and workmen came into 
open conflict. Many of the institutions of higher 
learning were nothing more nor less than the pre- 
serves of reaction. So long as they maintained 
that point of view their influence for worth-while 
developments stood at zero. 

The World War worked some transformations, 
however. The Latin American countries were not 
actively engaged. They viewed the conflict from 

87 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


afar. But its ideas reached them. And the ideals 
for which we believed the War was being fought 
caught the imagination of the youth of Latin 
America—as of many other lands. The result has 
been a complete transformation of student out- 
look. Instead of opposing progress and standing 
with reaction, the students now are probably the 
most effective force for liberalism. 

The customary method of expressing student 
displeasure has been, from time immemorial, the 
student strike. These strikes are always accom- 
panied by great student demonstrations. In the 
old, pre-war days, when the hand of the unchang- 
ing old order still rested heavily upon the youth 
of Latin America, these demonstrations revealed 
the hatreds and jealousies and prejudices which 
are the inevitable reflection of reaction. Great 
banners were carried, and there were shouts of: 
‘‘Down with the Priests!’? and ‘‘Death to the 
Foreigners!’’ But a new spirit—not of hatred 
—dominates these demonstrations. And now, 
parading through the city streets, the student 
banners proclaim ‘‘Luz! Mas Luz!’ It is a rev- 
olution in youth-outlook that has led these stu- 
dents to demand ‘‘Light! More Light!’ It indi- 
cates that a revolution in the whole Latin Ameri- 
can outlook is in the making. 

Instead of advocating and practising class con- 
flict, the students have become in many places the 

88 


Youth and the New Latin America 


spokesmen of the laboring groups. In Argentina, 
in fact, there is a student-labor movement. In 
almost every phase of Argentine life the effects 
of this movement are apparent. There have been 
riots and strikes and some unfortunate incidents 
have occurred. But, without minimizing the 
seriousness of these things, it must be said that 
no great social advance was ever made without 
running into the face of opposition which made 
such unfortunate incidents inevitable. 

In July, 1919, following a series of student- 
labor Beonsiitione the Argentine University 
Federation was formed and a convention assem- 
bled to study student problems. As a result of 
this study there has been a significant revision 
of the university system. There was a well- 
founded feeling that the university professors 
were not adapting their courses to the present | 
world situation. Now the students have the op- 
portunity to help in the election of professors. 

Something of the significance of this rising tide 
of student thought in Latin America is indicated 
in the reports printed for the Montevideo Con- 
ference, which declared that ‘‘as a phase of the 
almost universal post-war youth movement ap- 
pearing in Europe, North America, and the Orient, 
the organized uprising of South American stu- 
dents is a picturesque and prophetic expression 
of a new creative will.’’ 

89 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


‘‘To be a man,’’ writes Ricardo Rojas, ‘‘means 
to be able to point out with reflective clearness 
the evils of our time, . . . to transmute one’s own 
discontent into constructive energy through a con- 
crete ideal of better things, . . . to unite, with a 
manly will to work, a wing of hope.”’ 

And the report continues with the statement: 

‘‘Thousands of students in the universities 
of Argentina, Chile, Peru, and in other republics 
have joined in an ‘idealistic fraternity’ which, 
though not without extravagances, has been fired 
by what one of its leaders calls ‘a noble dream 
of transformation.’ The movement has decried 
‘parchment scholarship’ and demanded a regener- 
ation of the whole system of higher education— 
militaristic, materialistic, and ultra-nationalistic 
—upon which, it is said, the older civilization, in- 
cluding American democracy, has hitherto re- 
posed. It declares itself in revolt against the 
nationalistic sophism that the interests of the na- 
tion, right or wrong, are superior to all morality. 
Awake to the danger of purely utilitarian educa- 
tion that may ‘extinguish the sacred fire of souls,’ 
it calls for the cultivation of the spirit. Its fur- 
ther watchwords are peace, brotherhood, human- 
ity, international solidarity, and service. 

‘‘Disclaiming against the ‘atavistic warrior 
spirit,’ the university men of Chile have issued a 
manifesto declaring that they would never take 

90 


Youth and the New Latin America 


up arms against their Peruvian fellow-students.’’ 

This movement, spreading to Mexico, has be- 
come an international organization hailed by many 
as the hope of the future. 

Along other lines the work of these students is 
constructive. In Peru, for example, they have 
organized night classes for the working-men. 
Five nights out of every week representatives of 
the student organization at San Marcos Univer- 
sity go out to teach from three hundred to seven 
hundred workers who have never had educational 
advantages. Students have been most active 
among the educational missionaries sent out by 
the Mexican Government to carry education to 
the remote sections of the country. No other 
group is so potent an influence in the development 
of better understanding, not only among Latin 
American nations, but between Latin America 
and the United States. 

When, a short time ago, it was proposed. to 
hold an international congress of students in Mex- 
ico, there were many observers who declared that 
such a convention could never meet. Prejudices 
—national, racial, and religions—were said to be 
too strong to allow any such gathering. 

But the congress did convene. Representatives 
of twenty-three nations gathered there to consider 
the problems among the students of the world. 
The first resolution passed favored a World Asso- 

91 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


ciation of Nations. Other resolutions looked to 
‘‘(1) the abolition of the present conception of 
the state where the few rule the many; (2) the 
destruction of the exploitation of man by man; 
(3) the replacing of nationalism by international- 
ism; (4) a continual optimism in regard to the 
solution of the spiritual problems of the world 
in spite of present difficulties.’? 2 

According to a recent issue of the student mag- 
azine of Uruguay, another student conference was 
recently held in Piriapolis, which was attended 
by youth representatives from Argentina, Bo- 
livia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay. The 
manifesto adopted by the conference declared, in 
part: ‘‘Let us _revive the spirit of association 
brought out in the previous conferences of Lima, 
Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, which 
radiated the hope for a new era of progress; let 
us work together more and more so that youth, 
animated by the same principles, fortified by sim- 
ilar ideals, and embracing a common cause, may 
carry to our people a sane, noble, disinterested, 
and altruistic message impelled by love for public 
welfare and justice.’’ ? 

Now it is very important to ask about the re- 
ligious situation among these youthful leaders. 


1 Quoted by 8. G. Inman in The Revolt of Youth. Stanley High. 
. 106. 


2 “The Mission of Pan-American Youth.” Philip Leonard Green. | 
The World Tomorrow. November, 1924. 


92 


f Youth and the New Ban America 


And it is significant to know that, for the most 
part, the intellectual younger generation of Latin’ 
America is indifferent to religion or frankly athe- 
istic. If these young people are atheistic or in- 
different to religion, we can say that this attitude 
has been forced upon them by the religion with 
which they have been in contact. The Roman 
Catholic Church, as I have already pointed out, 
has consistently opposed political and social prog- 
ress. Those among the younger leaders who have 
stood for political and social progress have, of 
course, incurred the most bitter opposition from 
the powerful Church faction. Consequently, in 
the minds of these young intellectuals, religion has 
come to be synonymous with reaction, with the 
hopeless old order, with the pall of superstition 
and ignorance and injustice that it upheld. To 
combat the Church has been the obligation of these 
democratic leaders—if they ever expected their 
democracy to triumph. That combat, it is only 
fair to say, has been carried forward with a good 
deal of intolerance. But, despite that intolerance, 
one wonders how a liberal young Latin-American 
could follow any course other than one of opposi- 
tion to the old religious leadership. 
Protestantism, not only in Latin America, but 
around the world, is confronted with no more 
serious problem than that of determining whether 
its faith is to prove a source of spiritual strength 
93 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


to the leaders of the new movements for social 
and international justice; or whether it will pro- 
vide merely a differently named, but no more 
transforming set of dogmatisms than that which 
went by the name of Christianity before the Ref- 
ormation. It may appear, at first glance, that this 
problem has been solved; that Protestantism al- 
ready has declared itself, in unmistakable terms, 
for a gospel that, while spiritually satisfying, can 
be intellectually respectable and socially applied. 
It is true that many leaders and groups of Protes- 
tantism have so declared themselves on many spe- 
cific questions. But, for the influence of religion 
throughout the world, it would be a tragic blunder 
to underestimate the power of those Protestant 
agencies that even now devote themselves unceas- 
ingly to the preaching, not of a way of life, but 
of a certain set of absolutist doctrines. Such 
agencies give confirmation to those atheistic and 
religiously indifferent prophets of a new world 
order who maintain that religion must be stamped 
out before the world can be saved. 

In Latin America, however, as well as in every 
other country where Protestant work is being car- 
ried on, greater proof is constantly being given 
of the fact that religion can prove a bulwark for 
the new structure of enlightenment that liberal 
leaders are seeking to erect. To large numbers 
of students, Protestantism presents an altogether 

94 


Youth and the New Latin America 


new religious phenomenon. Religion in terms of 
spiritual experience, education, and social service, 
as well as in terms of individual conduct, is not 
religion as they have known it. Protestantism, 
by virtue of standing for these things, is coming 
to exert a rapidly increasing influence in the life 
of Latin America—an influence greater than could 
be ascertained by a statistical study of Protestant 
strength. 

It was in the middle of the last century that 
Protestant mission schools were started in Latin 
America. This was before belief in popular edu- 
cation had made headway among Latin American 
peoples. The masses were believed to have been 
destined for permanent exclusion from all the op- 
portunities which education opens up. But the 
missionaries came combating this belief. They 
proved that it was unfounded. Small mission 
schools, established in the face of the most bitter 
opposition, reached out for and found the common 
people. 

Yor the first time in recent history religion was 
seen in terms of education. And the educational 
work which the missionaries introduced was 
aimed not only against illiteracy. Lessons in hy- 
giene were given; domestic science was taught; 
on a small seale agricultural sciences and manual 
training were introduced. Christianity out of a 
real religiots experience began to be a matter of 

95 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


cleaner homes, better farms, happier and more 
intelligent Families, 

Now if you were to travel through Latin Ahew 
ica you would find this work of Christian educa- 
tional pioneering still going forward. There are 
great schools—many of them—in the cities of the 
South. No finer school, perhaps, exists in Latin 
America than MacKenzie College in the Brazilian 
city of Sao Paulo. MacKenzie College is inter- 
denominational. The faculty is made up of men 
and women of many nationalities. There are arts 
courses, and there are technical schools. There 
is a school of engineering, and a school of com- 
merce, as well as a preparatory school. The Bra- 
zilian Government looks to MacKenzie College 
for engineers in its great building and mining 
enterprises. Business men of Brazil have a con- 
fidence in the graduates from the MacKenzie Col- 
lege school of commerce. And out from all the 
branches of the college are going young men and 
young women with a new life outlook, fitted by 
their Christian training to be the leaders of the 
new Brazil. 

A new standard of education for women has 
been established largely through the efforts of 
these Evangelical workers. Education, as I have 
pointed out, was not considered of any avail for 
the masses in the old predemocratic days of Latin 
America. And, most positive of all, was the con- 

96 


ee ns 








Courtesy Board of Foreign Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church 


&» 
SoutH AMERICAN INDUSTRIES 


ABOVE, IS A GLIMPSE OF GRAIN ELEVATORS WHERE TONS OF 

WHEAT ARE STORED AWAITING SHIPMENT TO ALL PARTS OF THE 

WORLD. BELOW, ARE BAGS OF COFFEE PILED ON A BRAZILIAN 
DOCK READY TO BE LOADED ONTO OUTGOING STEAMERS. 


‘VOIHANV HLOAOS NI DNIACTING ALISHAAINA ; 
ALVIS V JO ALOVAd GNV AZIS AHL JO AIA WVXH GOOD V ST SINL 


ODVILNVS ‘ATIHO HO ALISUMAIN() 


ensetiRepeneenc ie 


0! 





Youth and the New Latin America 


viction that education for women was both un- 
desirable and futile. The Evangelical missionaries 
came bringing a new gospel of the place of woman- 
hood. And they gave demonstration of that new 
gospel by establishing girls’ schools—where the 
girls more than proved their fitness for education. 

Schools for girls are now scattered throughout 
Latin America. And a new womanhood is aris- 
ing. If you were to visit Crandon Institute in 
Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, you would 
find there under the influence of Evangelical mis- 
sionaries the daughters of many of the most prom- 
inent families of the country. Last year, for ex- 
ample, among the students were the nieces of the 
President of Uruguay, the daughters of senators 
and leading professional and business men. 

At Lavras, Brazil, the Escuela Agricola reaches 
a different type of young people. As at all these 
schools, religion is a distinctly seven-days-a-week 
proposition. It is tied up to industrial training. 
There is a fair-sized school farm and many stu- 
dents who are unable to pay for their schooling 
work out their tuition in this industrial-agricultu- 
ral way. Such work on the school farm not only 
helps to meet the expenses of the student, but 
when he has finished his course of study he is 
fitted with a general education and also has been 
prepared to take his place more successfully in 
the community where he will earn his living. 

O7 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


And the people of Latin America—particularly 
the common people—realize that this new gospel 
of enlightenment is for them; that its purpose 
is to strike off the chains which, for centuries, 
have bound them. 


Teotlalcingo is a little Mexican village, with a 
Protestant church and a native Mexican preacher. 
Along with the church, of course, there was a 
school. But the number of pupils in attendance 
soon outgrew the room provided, and the pastor 
realized that a new schoolroom would have to be 
built. He called the men of the community to- 
gether and they agreed that in some way they 
must get a new schoolroom. 

‘‘T shall write to the Mission Board for funds,’’ 
said the pastor. 

But the men of the church declared: ‘‘No, we 
are children no longer. We have learned to do 
things for ourselves. We can build our own 
school.’’ 

And build it they did. So now at Teotlalcingo 
a beautiful new schoolroom stands as a monument 
to the devotion of that little community to the 
ideals for which the missionary stands. 

This Mexican village school is no longer an 
unusual institution. Up and down through Latin 
America, wherever the missionary has gone, there 
have sprung up kindergartens, schools, dispen- 

98 


Youth and the New Latin America 


Saries, industrial missions, churches. Men and 
women and boys and girls have caught a vision 
of the light that shines in the missionary’s eyes; 
they have learned of a Great Master whom he 
follows. And from the day the missionary passed 
along, a new world of hope and happiness has 
come to supplant the misery and superstition and 
the dull ignorance from which, before, there 
seemed no avenue of escape. 


No other influence introduced by the Evangeli- 
cals into Latin America has a more important 
bearing upon the youth of Latin America’s next 
generation than the Sunday school. Now a Sun- 
day school in Latin America may mean anything 
from a group of eight or ten children gathered 
in a corner of an open courtyard or squatting on 
the dirt floor of some peon’s hut, to a well-organ- 
ized school of as many as a thousand children, 
youth, and adults divided into departments and 
efficiently administered and instructed. The far 
greater number of the schools are of the more 
primitive type. But in all of them the purpose is 
the same—the instruction of the young in those 
ideals whick Christ represented, in order that to- 
morrow, when they constitute the leaders of the 
nation, the Christ message will be made supreme. 

And out of these Sunday schools consecrated 
boys and girls are going—who are still of high- 

99 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


school age—as young pioneers to open up new 
schools and begin the work of educating a Chris- 
tian generation of youth. 

Not only in the Sunday schools but also in the 
young people’s societies throughout Latin Amer- 
ica, youth is finding an opportunity to give prac- 
tical expression to its vision. The weekly young 
people’s meetings do not end with Bible study. 
Very often they constitute planning centers from 
which a very definite social work may be carried 
on. Bible study-rooms are maintained; there are 
hospital and jail visitations; Christmas dinners 
for the poor; night classes for those who cannot 
attend day-school. In a great number of ways 
the young people, in the church, are demonstrat- 
ing their determination—with those outside the 
church—to work for the upbuilding of Latin 
America. And with this church group, the center 
and organizing power of their work is found in 
the person of Christ. 

Only a small fraction of the people of Latin 
America have professed the Evangelical faith. 
But from a numerically insignificant minority an 
influence has gone forth that alone furnishes a 
basis for the conviction that the new democracies 
of the South will build into their foundations a 
spiritual strength without which the building it- 
self will have been in vain. Latin American youth 
—assaulting the ramparts of reaction and selfish 

100 


Youth and the New Latin America 


prejudice—are the heroes of a great crusade. 
The force of Protestantism is engaged in the same 
crusade. Soon or late, their victory is certain. 
Over the ruined walls of the old order the banners 
of ‘Lue! Mas Luz!’’ will be unfurled. It is the 
Protestant opportunity to stand finally in the 
council of the victors as representative of the 
spiritual rebirth of Latin America. 


101 


V 
Sevioras and Seforitas of the South 


Ir you were to travel up through the gardens 
of yellow poppies that furnish a golden border to 
the Chilean city of Valparaiso, up through fra- 
grant peach orchards toward the Andes, to the city 
of Santiago, you would find unmistakable evidence 
of a woman-run revolution. Santiago is an old 
city. It is a conservative city—or was, until the 
women took a hand. Its Spanish buildings dat- 
ing from the days of conquest three centuries ago 
have an Old World beauty. The women of San- 
tiago, too, are beautiful. And they do things 
after their own fashion. 

One story will illustrate what I mean. An 
American woman who knew well the conventional 
ways of the women of Latin America was visit- 
ing in Santiago. She paused one day at the cor- 
ner of Compania and Ahumada, two busy streets, 
to admire the beauty of the women who passed. 

‘‘A queenly matron,’’ so the story goes, ‘‘who 
might have been thirty, faultlessly gowned, came 
towards us. I watched her as she neared the cor- 
ner, where men occupied every inch of the side- 
walk. I waited to see if she would step aside. 
She did not. When she reached the blockade, 
she flashed alluring eyes and with a smile said, 

102 


Senoras and Senoritas of the South 


‘Permiso!’ The men fell to right and left, and 
she strode majestically past. This performance 
was repeated many times. The magic word ‘Per- 
miso’ gave woman the right of way on the narrow 
sidewalks. There was nothing humble about the 
Chilean woman.’’ * 


So many things are done differently in Latin 
America from what we are accustomed to. By 
that it is not meant, necessarily, that they are less 
well done. For example, if you were a young 
person—say from sixteen to twenty-three years 
of age—and had lived all your life in the North 
and suddenly found yourself transported to one 
of these southern republics, what would be some 
of these differences that would be difficult to ac- 
custom yourself to? You would find it perplexing 
to stumble from English into Spanish. The food, 
perhaps, would not all be to your cereal-for-break- 
fast iking. Neckties with the right stripes might 
be hard to find. And the barbers might not know 
the intricate art of shingle bobbing. 

But of all the differing customs in the way of 
living none would be so noticeable as those which 
relate to home life. If, as an exuberant American 
youth, you should set forth to make the acquaint- 
ance of some attractive Latin American young 
lady, obstacles many and difficult would be thrown 

1 Men, Maidens and Mantillas. Stella Burke May. 

103 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


into your path. Here in the North, of course, 
there are introductions and introductions. No- 
where is American democracy more apparent than 
in the manner in which young men become ac- 
quainted with young women, or vice versa. That, 
perhaps, is as it should be. But it cannot be denied 
that both our system and that of our Latin Ameri- 
can neighbors have their dangers. The greater 
freedom between young men and young women 
may lead to the excesses of jazzmania, as it fre- 
quently does in the North. But what good friend- 
ships would be lost if, every time we were on 
the verge of an acquaintance, custom would step 
in and decree that—before a word is spoken— 
we must rush home, forthwith, produce the fam- 
ily credentials, get them properly viséed by 
the proper family officials and—after intermina- 
ble negotiations between the family diplomats— 
finally, with proper chaperonage, be ushered into 
each other’s presence, there to bow and curtsy 
like a couple of figures in a medieval painting! 
With some modifications, however, that is pre- 
cisely the process through which we would be 
obliged to go if we lived in Latin America. Tt 
is a necessity to have always on hand a good 
family and a birth certificate. As soon as a girl 
is born, a hedge is built about her and ghe is 
reared to womanhood behind it. The boys are not 
so unfortunate. They are allowed the freedom 
104 


Senoras and Sefioritas of the South 


of the city—so to speak. But not the girls. For- 
bidding iron gratings guard the windows of the 
old homes in many Latin American countries. 
These gratings are symbolic of the seclusion in 
which, from time immemorial, the women of Latin 
America have been kept. Young ladies seldom 
venture on the streets alone. When they go forth, 
they are under careful chaperonage. Even though 
a young lady is betrothed, she never appears on 
the street in company with her fiancé unless an 
elder guardian is along as well. 

Imagine the young men and women of the North 
under such handicaps! 

Men rule supreme in the social life of Latin 
America. The world, including woman, was built 
for man, if one were to judge by these customs. 
Men are the masters of all of life. And whenever 
a woman of these southern nations ventures out 
from behind the hedges of convention to assert 
her rights, she realizes, in advance, that she must 
_ face the ridicule and the persecution of those who 
believe in the maintenance of a permanent male 
supremacy. 

The womanhood of Latin America, of course, 
has her great realm within the home. And beau- 
tiful homes these women build around their own 
faith, self-sacrifice, and devotion. Hiveryone takes 
it for granted that the mother will be the em- 
bodiment of all the high virtues associated with 

105 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


family life. But there are few who dare question 
the man of the household regarding the virtues 
that he embodies. And as for equal rights and 
obligations between men and women, there have 
been, up to the most recent times, but very few 
to assert them. 

This seclusion of womanhood in Latin America 
has resulted in serious evils, just as the freedom 
in the North has resulted in evils. But it is an 
undeniable fact that when men are left alone and 
their acts are not subjected to feminine criticism, 
they are quite likely to fall into habits of living 
and attitudes toward life that are not of the best. 
Thus, in Latin America, when a man steps be- 
yond the threshold of his own home, he enters 
a different world—one in which he is the supreme 
dictator. As a result, in that outer world, be- 
yond all feminine influence, standards—political, 
economic, and social—have been set up that could 
never have been established had women been given 
a voice in the direction of affairs. 

It is easy enough, of course, for us to criticize 
Latin Americans because of this double standard. 
It is not so easy to prove that even in the United 
States and in Canada we are not living, in re- 
gard to many matters, under a similar double 
standard. No questions may be asked about the 
infidelity of a man toward his wife and family, 
in many places in Latin America. The infidelity 

106 


Seftoras and Sentioritas of the South 


of a wife to her husband and family—that is al- 
Ways punished. Precisely the same situation is 
widespread in the United States. How many men 
there are who, unhesitatingly, criticize a woman, 
but never submit to criticism for their own similar 
actions and never realize the hypocrisy of their 
point of view! 

But, while recognizing that double-standard im- 
morality is not by any means confined to any 
single country, the fact of widespread licentious- 
ness and loose living in Latin America cannot 
be overlooked. The most superficial contact with 
the men of these countries brings one face to face 
with the realization that they are governed by 
different ideas of morality from those accepted 
as the North American basis of decency. It is 
not that we can afford to assume a holier-than- 
thou attitude. We cannot. America’s sinning is 
too widespread and it is too grievous to allow 
that. 

But to enter a South American city and, of an 
afternoon, walk down the boulevards, or to stand 
at evening and watch the surface life of the city 
is to be impressed with a languid looseness that, 
too often, is confirmed when one penetrates deeper 
into actual conditions. Men who isolate their 
wives and daughters from all free contact with 
the world do not deny their own immorality. 
While they talk about the sanctity of womanhood, 

107 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


many of them live in a manner that gives the lie 
to their chivalrous prattle. 

The result of all this has been accentuated by 
the fact that, in many places, the Roman Catholic 
Church puts almost impossible economic barriers 
in the way of those among the poorer classes who 
would marry. A legal marriage—sanctioned by 
the Church—is frequently made almost prohibi- 
tively expensive. Consequently, many of those 
whose incomes are limited make no pretense about 
marriage at all. Under these conditions illegiti- 
mate children are born; little responsibility is felt 
for their care; the fundamental ideals of the home 
are shaken; and the community itself suffers a 
degree of degradation. 

This situation exists today as a hang-over from 
the past. But there is a real promise for a differ- 
ent sort of tomorrow. There are revolutions in 
process in Latin America—many of them. And 
one of the most startling is the feminist move- 
ment. Because it is working to tear down the 
superficial hedges around womanhood and build 
up new standards of living for both men and 
women, this is one of the most significant of these 
revolutions. 

In Chile, to be sure, women have been admitted 
to the universities for fifty years. There are some 
forty-nine schools, or Liceos, for girls, under the 
exclusive jurisdiction of women. There are, more- 

108 


Sefioras and Seforitas of the South 


over, two professional girls’ schools in Santiago 
and one in each province. At the present time 
there are over a thousand girls attending the 
University of Chile. And a keener, more wide- 
awake crowd it would be difficult to find in any 
eity of the world. 

Sharing these educational advantages has de- 
veloped self-reliance in the women of Chile—as 
it is developing self-reliance in the women of all 
Latin America. The mere fact that a man is a 
man proves nothing to these women of Latin 
America’s new day. And it is becoming increas- 
ingly true there, as in other parts of the world, 
that no public question—certainly no private one 
—is ever settled until the voice of woman has 
been heard upon it. 

A visit to the Club de Sefioras in Santiago 
would serve to make that fact very clear. The 
Club de Sefioras is an organization similar to a 
woman’s club in a North American city. But 
when this club was started in Santiago, woman’s 
rights—outside the home—were unheard of. 
There was plenty of opposition to the idea of 
this expression of woman’s independence. The 
men, of course, were dumfounded at the proposal. 
The newspapers, many of them, openly fought 
the undertaking. 

‘‘You are attacking the foundations of the 
home,’’ said the papers. 

109 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


‘<The foundations of the home will be stronger 
if women broaden their own foundations of in- 
terest,’’ replied the women. 

The opposition continued. So did the women. 
A. clubroom was secured. Invitations to an open 
meeting were issued. The men came with the 
women. And both men and women have been 
coming ever since. Art, literature, science, the 
problems of politics and of economics—all of these 
things come in for serious study at the Club de 
Senoras. And as a result, the cultured women of 
the higher class in Santiago have become a potent 
influence for good. 

Another woman’s organization in Santiago is 
the Centro Feminino de Estudio. This is a club 
of amore practical sort. Girls are taught sewing, 
millinery, and cooking. Other clubs, with mem- 
berships drawn from various social groups, have 
been established, and in all of them the voice 
of a new womanhood is speaking. And, to revert 
to the story at the beginning of this chapter, 
Chilean women can walk down the busiest streets, 
refuse to be pushed from the sidewalk by self- 
centered men, and maintain their dignity with a 
kind but convincing ‘‘Permiso!’’ 


It is not alone in Chile that the women have 
spoken out in meeting and made their influence 
felt. Throughout all Latin America there is a 

110 


Senoras and Senoritas of the Sowth 


restless stirring; a discontent with the code that 
consigns women to a position of domestic servi- 
tude. Particularly is this movement having an 
effect upon those women who are obliged to work 
in industry. In Latin America, as in many other 
countries, the United States and Canada included, 
it has been difficult for women to secure equal 
wages with men for the same work. In the Ar- 
Ae MEN where there is a powerful Socialist work- 
ers’ party, the women are openly agitating a pro- 
gram that calls for: 

1. The repeal of all laws which establish a 
difference between the two sexes and legislate 
against woman, in order that the latter be no 
longer the weakling which she is today before the 
law. 

2. The right of woman to hold public office and 
especially to be a member of any National and 
Regional Council on Education. 

3. The establishment of special courts for chil- 
dren and women. 

4, The passing of laws for the protection of 
maternity and for making legitimate all the chil- 
dren that are born. 

5. The abolition of legal prostitution and the 
establishment of the white life for both. 

6. An equality of wages. 

7. HKqual political rights.* 

1South America Today. 8S. G. Inman. p. 31. 

111 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


For a unique piece of constructive work I com- 
mend the achievements of the Consejo Nacional 
de Mujeres in Buenos Aires. Its representatives 
attended a conference of the International Coun- 
cil of Women in the United States in 1925. They 
have been doing pioneer work for world peace 
and this they presented at the convention. This 
organization has undertaken a study of the work 
of women in other lands with a view to adapting 
that work to the needs of the Argentine. But 
that is not all. Buenos Aires is a very popular 
city. Everybody in Argentina wants to live in 
the capital city. And a good many do. Conse- 
quently, the city is overcrowded and rents are 
atrociously high. The women of the Consejo 
Nacional de Mujeres are undertaking to better 
this situation. Further than that, they are open- 
ing up to women work formerly done by men. 
Imagine a city where typists, secretaries, libra- 
rians, school-teachers were almost entirely men. 
And if you go into a store in Buenos Aires and 
seek to buy women’s wear—veils, lingerie, stock- 
ings—you will doubtless be obliged to buy from 
a man. 

These are women’s jobs, it is now maintained. 
An organized drive is being made to get the men 
into masculine occupations and to find for the 
women work for which they are suited. This 
may sound like a very trivial undertaking. But 

112 


GDaTION NOISSIPL V JO ANID ANVNALIT STUN - 











ie a 





COLLEGE ATHLETICS 


ABOVE, IS THE START OF THE 400-YARD DASH AT THE TRACK 
MEET CF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE, BUENOS AIRES. BELOW, IS 
Tk FOOTBALL TEAM OF GRANBERY COLLEGE, BRAZIL. 





Senoras and Sefioritas of the South 


there is nothing trivial about it. The fundamental 
question of woman’s rights and the even more 
important question of woman’s opportunity are 
at stake in this attempt to fit the women who must 
work into their rightful places in the economic 
organization of the community. 

And when you realize that in Argentina, accord- 
ing to a report in 1914, out of every eight children 
who are born, one does not live to be two years 
of age,—or, in other words, that 43,800 children 
less than two years of age die every year,—it be- 
comes clear enough that the job which these 
women reformers have cut out for themselves is 
a big one. It should be pointed out, however, that 
this infant mortality is due almost exclusively to 
rural and not to urban conditions. In the city 
of Buenos Aires, for instance, in 1919 fewer 
babies under one year of age died than in the 
city of Chicago. In Buenos Aires, recently, the 
fourth annual Baby Week was held under the 
auspices of the Club de Madres. The Government 
and the leading merchants of the city cooperated. 
Charts, photographs, lectures, and clinics all com- 
bined to bring before the motherhood of the city 
its responsibility and to demonstrate intelligent 
methods for meeting this adequately. 

It is among the women, also, that the temper- 
ance movement in Latin America has made the 
most rapid headway. There is no question about 

113 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


the need for a strong temperance movement. 
Alcohol exacts a heavy toll from the life of Latin 
American peoples every year. No curse rests 
more heavily upon them than that of strong 
drink. Asin every other country where the move- 
ment toward prohibition has made headway, the 
women are in the vanguard. 

So important has the work for temperance be- 
come among the women of Buenos Aires that, 
with the aid of some organization of North 
America, a temperance building is soon to be 
erected in the center of the city. The head- 
quarters of the Continental Temperance Society 
is in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The 
headway that this movement is making is indi- 
cated by the recent visit to Latin America of 
Miss Anna Gordon, President of the Woman’s 
Christian Temperance Union of North America. 
Not only did the most prominent women join in 
the reception to Miss Gordon, but also the most 
prominent men, including the President of almost 
every country she visited. In the great mass 
meeting in Buenos Aires the Bishops of the 
Roman Catholic Church and the Methodist Hpis- 
copal Church united on the same platform in a 
pledge of support to the cause of temperance. 

In addition to these economic and social ad- 
vances, women are entering the field of sport. It 
is not recorded that they have as yet become so 

114 


Seforas and Seforitas of the South 


active as their sisters in the communities of the 
North, but their handicap was very great. For 
a long time any participation by women in games 
was viewed with scorn. Then, during another 
period, only the daughters of the wealthy could 
afford the leisure and the trappings necessary for 
these pleasures. Of late, however, playgrounds 
have been established in many cities. Y.W.C.A. 
gymnasiums have been opened. Some of the more 
courageous young women have taken part, pub- 
licly, in sporting events. All of this indicates, 
merely, that a beginning has been made. It is 
as yet no more than a beginning. 

I have described the activities of the most ad- 
vanced among the women. The vast majority, 
however, are still under the pall of superstition 
and of a medieval social code. South America 
is the only continent on which not a single woman 
enjoys the right to vote. A long, hard road lies 
ahead of these pioneers who are determined to 
advance until the womanhood of Latin America 
can stand abreast of the womanhood of the 
North. 

With these advancing hosts of Latin American 
women, there march a great many members of 
Evangelical churches. The influence of the Evan- 
gelicals is on the side of enlightenment, of equal 
standards of morality, and of those democratic 
developments for which the most far-sighted 

115 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


women are working. Thus Protestantism is one 
of the mighty forces in Latin America for the 
emancipation of womanhood. 

To enter into the average Y.W.C.A. building 
in any of the countries of the South is to cross 
the portals into a new kingdom—a kingdom where 
woman is supreme, and where the finest qualities 
of womanhood are given first consideration. In 
1920 the Y.W.C.A. opened its headquarters in 
Rio de Janeiro. Before the building was fully 
ready, eight hundred members were enroled. By 
the end of 1922 membership had reached about 
a thousand, representing young women of twenty- 
seven nationalities, of nineteen religious beliefs, 
and of forty occupations. Camp Fire girls, Bible 
study groups, vocational courses, gymnasium 
classes—through these and many other channels 
of approach the Y.W.C.A. in Rio—as in other 
Latin American cities—is helping young women 
toward gaining a new outlook and a new life 
usefulness. 

One of the most astonishing things about this 
work among women is the fact that all of the 
schools for young women are crowded to capacity. 
On every hand the women are demanding educa- 
tion. At Crandon Institute, for instance, it was 
thought that the new buildings provided for the 
future. But they were quickly filled. Almost 
every girls’ school in Latin America turns away 

116 


Sefioras and Seiioritas of the South 


applicants every year. Parents who are not Prot- 
estant send their girls to the missionary schools 
because of the kind of ideals that these schools 
are known to represent. 

This interest in education extends to the field 
of sports. In Lima, recently, the girls of some 
of the most aristocratic families put on an open- 
air demonstration of gymnasium work that as- 
tonished the exponents of social reaction. Women 
are taking an active interest in golf and tennis 
and are competing for places on the women’s 
Olympic teams. 

The report of one young American woman sent 
out to work with the girls of Latin America in- 
dicates how this seed of new understanding is 
being sown. ‘This particular young lady was 
asked to deliver a series of lectures on sociologi- 
cal questions to the students of a certain univer- 
sity. The themes were chosen and the dates set. 
When the first lecture was to begin, however, 
there were no lights for the auditorium, and no 
lights could be found. The lecture and the series 
were called off. Roman Catholic political influ- 
ence was said to have intervened to block the 
presentation to the young college girls of the ad- 
vanced ideas of this young Protestant. 

A little later this same young lady was asked 
to speak to two hundred girls of the Normal 
School but, to avoid difficulties, the woman in 

117 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


charge of the meeting declared that she would 
not tell the students who she was. 

The report continues: ‘‘During August I had 
a weekly Bible class at the Y.W.C.A. on the fun- 
damentals of faith. We used Catholic Bibles, © 
and the discussions were most interesting and 
illuminating. Request has been made that these 
classes be continued as regular Bible study in © 
October. For six weeks in July and August I 
taught the Book of Hebrews to a group at the 
Bible Institute.... Since July I have had 
charge of the Infant Department in the Redemp- 
tor Sunday school. I have acted as President of 
the Presbyterian Woman’s National League and 
of the Spanish Club.’’ 

So it goes. A consecrated woman in a great 
city gathers about her a little group of girls, in- 
structing them, understanding them, leading them 
out, until they are fitted to enter other communi- 
ties and there become the radiating centers for a 
wholly new life for young and old alike. When 
one considers how wide the field is, it is apparent 
that Christian workers are tragically few. But 
one consecrated woman, touching the lives with 
whom she comes into daily contact can multiply 
her influence until, with an increasing force, the 
ideals represented by the gospel of Christ will 
advance to find acceptance in the individual and 
community life of these southern countries. 

118 


Sefioras and Seforitas of the South 


In other ways the influence of Protestantism is 
touching the life of South American womanhood. 
In the Campanito district of Chile, Mrs. John F. 
Jarrett, for twelve years, has carried on with her 
medical skill, in the name of Christian service. 
Her story is one of conquest—a conquest even 
more inspiring, perhaps, than that on which 
Columbus and Martino Sanchez embarked at the 
end of the fifteenth century. 

‘‘H'rom the early beginnings of the work in the 
Campanito district,’? Mrs. Jarrett writes, ‘‘when 
people came in every Sunday from miles around, 
some on foot, some on burros, some on the shoul- 
ders of friends and relatives, I feel confident that 
fruit has been borne, even though tradition and 
age-long habit of mind have not permitted the 
people to make open and united acknowledgment 
of their Savior.’’ 

Many stories have been told of this Christian 
work for the women of Latin America. One more 
needs to be told here. This is a very common- 
place sort of story. Its scene is in Peru—in a 
girls’ school in Lima. The Lima High School 
is not particularly distinctive, perhaps, among 
missionary schools for girls. There are many 
such institutions in Latin America. So when you 
read this story, as it is told by another, just 
realize that, in other countries of the South, 
other schools are training girls like Hudosia to 

119 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Christian womanhood. So the story reaches us: 
‘‘Saturday morning in the Lima High School 
—Saturday morning filled with the tasks of home 
and non-academic duties and in the internado 
of twelve laughing girls, each one had her special 
chore. While I sat at my desk writing, I smiled 
in amusement as I caught snatches of their girl- 
ish bantering. Presently above the trill of laugh- 
ter and the clatter of porcelain pitchers and bowls 
in the adjoining bathroom, there came a song, 
‘Thou my everlasting portion, more than friend 
or life to me.’ It was Eudosia who sang. A 
child happy and beautiful, filled by a love beyond 
her dreaming, Hudosia with a voice of youth and 
springtime sang with notes of clearness and in- 
effable tenderness to the end, ‘Then the gate of 
life eternal, may I enter, Lord, with thee.’ 
‘“T'wo years ago, Eudosia and her sister, Ama- 
bilia, came to us from their father’s large ha- 
cienda. There many Indians and slave-girls had 
answered their every whim. The contrast was 
great and the adjustment rather difficult when the 
heiresses of vast haciendas and rich silver mines 
were placed without maid or servant in a school 
where daily chores of bed-making, sweeping, dust- 
ing, and care of the dormitories and bathroom 
were a part of the daily curriculum. At first, 
there were storms of passion with the stamping 
of small feet and bursts of uncontrolled weep- 
120 


Senoras and Seforitas of the South 


ing; then, fits of sulkiness when the set of the 
pretty mouth and toss of the head said only too 
plainly, ‘I won’t do it!’ But time and associa- 
tion alleviated the horrors, and today Eudosia 
with a smile on her lips and a song in her heart 
wants to do her part. | 

‘“While I have been recounting this little meas- 
ure of progress, she has passed from one grand 
old hymn to another without a false note or fal- 
tering word—‘ Jesus calls us o’er the tumult’ and 
‘Glorious things of thee are spoken.’ Then it was, 
‘O Jesus, I have promised,’ and ‘O Master, let 
me walk with Thee.’ Now, above the intensity 
of her scouring, the faintest whisper sounds, and 
like an echo transmuted in super-air the message 
of her new life bursts forth—‘There is sunshine 
in my soul today!’ ’’? 

Thus a new womanhood is coming to these south- 
ern republics. It is coming because the spirit of 
the Man who was the Son of God is finding rep- 
resentatives among courageous men and women 
who are giving of themselves—ag He gave Him- 
self—in order that darkened streets may be made 
light; and filthy homes made pure; and wretched 
people shown the light; and selfish people, who 
have wealth and power, brought to know the obli- 
gation and the joy of Christian service. 


1“A Bit of Spanish Shawl.” Martha C. Hartman. A leaflet 
published by the Woman’s Foreign Mission Society of the Meth-. 
odist Episcopal Church, Boston. Price, 8 cents. 


121 


VI 
Indians of Latin America 


We have seen a good bit of Latin America along 
the boulevards. We have gone through the wide 
thoroughfares of the hustling, crowded cities of 
the South and out into quiet roads to the gar- 
dened countrysides surrounding them. We have 
found our way to a vantage point from which 
we have watched the new tides of life and thought 
that are flowing along the streets of these south- 
ern nations. While we looked on, the walls of 
prejudice and caste that surrounded the old uni- 
versities have begun to crumble away under the 
assaults of youthful crusaders out to make learn- 
ing not a tool of indolent aristocracy but a means 
for social service. From the homes of Latin 
America we have seen a new womanhood emerge 
—disdainful of the superficial hedges of conven- 
tion and determined that the voice of woman- 
hood shall be heard for the building of a new 
order of home and community life. As we have 
watched, something of the new life of Latin Amer- 
ica has passed in review before us. And in all 
this that we have seen Christianity is playing 
an increasing part. 

But Latin America is more than this vital mov- 
ing picture that one sees along its boulevards. 

122 


Indians of Latin America 


There is another—a more ancient—Latin Amer- 
ica. We may perhaps have noticed the repre- 
sentatives of this other Latin America in the 
market-places of the cities we visited. They come 
there to sell strange hand-woven cloths, or pot- 
tery made on a wheel as in the time of Jeremiah. 
We may, too, have seen these Indians—the other 
Latin Americans—doing the day labor of city 
communities. Much of the work, skilled and un- 
skilled, is performed by Indians. Their hands 
till the fields and their sickles reap the harvests. 
Hovels and paoaces are built with the sun-dried 
brick that the Indians mold. The wealth that 
comes from the mine is of their digging; the 
highways, the bridges, the railroads, are of their 
building. In the homes of the South it is, usually, 
an Indian who collects the fuel, cooks the food, 
carries the water, and performs most other domes- 
tic services. But, though we have come into con- 
tact with the Indians in the great cities of the 
South where they are so essential a part of the 
industrial life, we have not really learned of them 
unless we have visited their villages in the little- 
known interior of the continent. 

So scattered are the Indians, so inaccessible 
are their villages, and so unimportant have they 
been considered by their Spanish overlords that 
no census has been taken of them. It is said, how- 
ever, that there are nearly ten millions of these 

123 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


first South Americans. They are found, most of 
them, in remote districts along that line of moun- 
tain range that extends from northern Mexico, 
south along the Pacific seaboard, down to the tip 
of Patagonia, and also in the forest lowlands. 

We make a serious mistake if we consider that 
these Indians are, uniformly, unintelligent sav- 
ages living in squalor and in superstition. Many 
of the leading statesmen of Latin America, many 
of the continent’s greatest poets and artists have 
been of Indian blood. They have gloried in this 
fact. To them, the blood of the Indians is a link 
with ancient glories and ancient civilizations that 
rose long before the Spanish conquistadores in- 
vaded the New World. As Indians, they look with 
disdain upon the superficial and supercilious atti- 
tude of those who, in more recent times, came to 
rule and to oppress. 

Even aside from these distinguished Indians 
who have risen to fame in Latin America, the 
Indians, in general, represent a very high order 
of human being. The Incas in Peru and the 
Mayas in Mexico built up a civilization equal, in 
most respects, to that of the Spaniards who de- 
stroyed it. In fact, the tremendous advantage of 
the Spaniards because of their knowledge of fire- 
arms and the use of horses, constituted, perhaps, 
their chief point of superiority over the Indians. 
And now, in this twentieth century, knowledge of 

124 


Indians of Latin America 


the use of firearms can hardly be called one of 
the worthy attributes of civilization. 

But to the Spaniard—as to other conquering 
races—the native is an inferior. The Indian of 
Latin America is either spurned or enslaved by 
the Spanish-speaking peoples. When the white 
man came to the New World he quickly enslaved 
the Indians. They were made the hewers of wood 
and the drawers of water for the invaders. They 
were herded like cattle, and driven like cattle, 
and given an animal status in the social scale. 
Four centuries of such oppression broke the high 
spirit of the Indians. Even those races that, of 
their own strength, had built civilizations, reared 
great cities, cut highways through the mountains, 
and woven together a great fabric of culture 
and commerce were broken under this tyranny. 
In their own land, and in the midst of the crum- 
bled ruins of their own greatness, they became 
_ wretched, outcast, and the tools of their exploiters. 

Today one may go into a Latin American vil- 
lage and ask a Ladino—one of the Spanish-speak- 
ing class—how many people live there and the 
reply, doubtless, will be, ‘‘Oh, about so many 
people.’’ And then, as a second thought, ‘‘Of 
course there are a certain number of Indians in 
addition to the people.’’ 

Indians, in other words, are not really people. 
They represent a lower order of creation. They 

125 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


are often called Indio bruto (low down Indian). 

Before we accept this point of view—which is 
the characteristic point of view of a conquering 
race toward those whom it has conquered—let us 
recall the two facts to which I have already re- 
ferred. First, the Indians at one time were great 
enough to develop a high civilization of their own. 
Second, their decline from greatness has come 
about less because of their own inferiority than 
because of the superior force represented by those 
who overcame them and the measures by which 
- the conquerors kept them in servitude. 

And today, in the centers of the old Inca and 
Maya culture, and in sections of Latin America 
where they never made such progress, the Indians 
are a neglected and backward people. The high- 
land Indians, of course, are much more advanced 
and much more easily reached and helped than 
the lowland. It was among the highland Indians 
that the old civilizations grew. The lowland In- 
dians, on the other hand, are largely uncivilized. 
They inhabit those unknown empires of forest 
and grass lands around the headwaters of the 
Amazon and La Plata rivers, the coastal regions 
of the Caribbean and the extreme southern end 
of the continent, as well as the humid sections 
of Ecuador and Colombia.’ 

1“Tndians of Latin America.” Committee on Cooperation in 
Latin America. 

126 


Indians of Latin America 


The Indians of Latin America are very differ- 
ent from those of North America. Originally the 
North American Indian, very often, was indolent 
and warlike. He proceeded on the assumption 
that work was not for men, and, therefore, he 
allowed the women to do it. The Latin American 
Indian, on the other hand, aside from the indus- 
trial work already mentioned, is an agriculturist. 
In many sections of the South these Indians are 
maintained practically as serfs on large estates. 
Elsewhere they live in independent communities. 
Both men and women are hard workers. The 
men work in the fields, and the women grind the 
corn and care for the home and children. They 
are pacific and cannot be made to fight except un- 
der the greatest provocation. Latin America is 
known in North America as a territory of many 
wars and revolutions. But it is significant that 
these disturbances, with very few exceptions, have 
been brought about by the Spanish-speaking 
invaders. 

The social life of the average Indian com- 
munity is but little changed from the days before 
the white man came. With the military, there 
came, as we have seen, the religious invasion of 
Latin America. The Indians were allowed to 
choose between Christianity and slavery. Many 
of them refused to abandon their old beliefs for 
the faith of their conquerors and, as a conse- 

127 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


quence, they were branded and sold. Those who 
accepted the faith and the baptism of the Roman 
Catholics were little disturbed in the form of their 
life. Their social organization—largely com- 
munal in nature—was maintained. Frequently 
the Spanish governors aided them in the forma- 
tion of a more effective organization. This, ob- 
viously, was good business. The more prosper- 
ous the community, the more taxes could be levied 
against it and the more indolent overlords it could 
support. 

At the basis of the social organization among 
the Indians is the family unit. Family life, in 
many respects, is very stable among the Indians. 
Their customs are as unusual as they are ancient. 
Dr. Paul Burgess, who knows intimately the life 
among the Indians, describes one custom preva- 
lent in a certain tribe relating to the winning— 
the ‘‘roping’’ would be better—of a wife. 

When a young man falls in love, the manner 
of his proposal is something like this. He hides 
in the bushes along the path that leads from the 
home of his sweetheart to the village fountain. 
When she passes by,—the water-jar on her head, 
—he throws a lasso, catches her water jar, and 
brings it crashing to the ground. 

The father of the young girl is immediately 
notified. He, in great anger, at once calls the 
father of the young man. Her father demands 

128 


Indians of Latin America 


of his father an explanation of the broken water- 
jar. The young man, thereupon, is called into the 
conference. The reason for the broken water-jar 
is demanded of him. He then confesses his love. 
His father supports the son and gives him a 
strong parental recommendation. The girl’s 
father, however, begins to relate the difficulties 
and the expenses—particularly the expenses—in- 
volved in bringing up so fine a daughter as his. 
Though he professes no willingness to oppose a 
real affair of love, he is insistent that some re- 
turn be made on his investment. Terms are 
arranged. The young man agrees to serve his 
father-in-law for a period of months; or to cut 
him a certain measure of wood; or, perhaps, pay 
him a certain amount in sheep or hogs or actual 
cash. | 

After the marriage, the new couple—daring all 
perils—live with the parents of the bridegroom. 
Later in life they establish their own home. 
While living with the parents-in-law, however, the 
bride is made strictly accountable to her mother- 
in-law. And the whole life of the family is or- 
ganized around its head—the father, who is guide 
and counselor, judge and tyrant. 

Above the family there stands the commune. 
The commune is organized on the general prin- 
ciple of the ejido, which we referred to in dis- 
cussing Mexico. The community owns a certain 

129 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


tract of land and this is distributed for the use, 
not the ownership, of certain families. Redis- 
tribution takes place every few years in order to 
prevent the acquisition, by any family, of any 
particularly valuable section of the communal 
territory. 

Very often the increase of population in a com- 
mune makes support impossible on the amount 
of land that is owned and, as a consequence, cer- 
tain members of the community are obliged to 
hire themselves out to the Spanish overlords. 
This is the way in which the peonage system 
originated. The Indians receive pay in advance 
for the work they are to do. The rate of pay 
is so low that the Indian, once the debt he in- 
curred when he started working is paid off, is 
confronted with a larger debt, which is a result 
of the amount expended by the landlord for his 
support, or the amount borrowed to buy from 
the landlord’s store. Since, with very few ex- 
ceptions, the Indian is unable to pay his debt, 
he becomes the property of his master. If the 
landlord wishes to dispose of him, he merely sells 
the debt to some other landlord and the Indian 
is thus sold back and forth as any other live stock. 

Within the independent, land-holding com- 
munes, however, government is left, at least in 
its smaller and local details, to the members of 
the commune. The governing body is made up 

130 


Indians of Latin America 


of the ‘‘Principal Men’’—a sort of Council of 
Elders. These men are elected by popular vote 
—all males being eligible to participate. The 
Principal Men group carries on the general affairs 
of the communities, settles disputes, and appoints 
judges. 

Economic life in these communes is In a very 
erude state of development. The customary 
machinery for cultivation of the fields is the 
azadon, a large and exceedingly awkward hoe. 
The customary machinery for harvesting is the 
hand sickle. Dr. Burgess tells of a friend who 
secured a large tract of land—some three or four 
hundred acres—and proceeded to grow wheat 
upon it. He proposed, moreover, to cultivate the 
tract with modern machinery. Consequently he 
invaded the territory with mules, a McCormick 
reaper and binder, and a threshing machine. 

Some three or four years later Dr. Burgess 
traveled through this territory at harvest time. 
The reaper and the binder, he discovered, were 
standing, rusting, in the shed and the fields were 
being cut by Indian women using hand sickles. 
When Dr. Burgess requested an explanation from 
his friend he was told that it had been found 
cheaper to pay Indian women to harvest the grain 
with sickles than to purchase twine for the 
reaper and binder, and in addition the cost of 
the upkeep of the mules was also saved. 

131 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Transportation, among the Indians, is as crude 
as their methods of farming. The Indians’ back 
provides the only available freight car. And atop 
this vehicle the average Indian can transport 
more than the average load. Dr. Burgess relates 
that on one occasion he arrived at the end of a 
railroad line some thirty miles distant from his 
destination. He had a trunk that weighed at 
least two hundred pounds. He hired an Indian. 
The Indian hoisted the trunk to his back, carried 
it for those thirty miles, rising, in that distance, 
some six thousand feet above the starting point, 
and delivered it at the end of the journey for a 
sum of about one and one-half dollars. 

Throughout the interior of the southern con- 
tinent, wherever there is an Indian population, it 
is a common sight to see the Indian traveling 
salesman, his pack upon his back, making his way 
from village to village. Every conceivable thing 
is carried in these loads—from pottery and home- 
spun clothes to eggs and live stock. And in every 
Indian market-place these drummers barter and 
exchange, using very little cash but dealing al- 
most altogether by trades. 

It is in regard to religion, perhaps, that the 
Indians of Latin America are most degraded. 
Outwardly most of them have been baptized into 
the Roman Catholic Church. They have Chris- 
tian names. They are married by the Church 

132 


Indians of Latin America 


and buried by the Church. In some place in al- 
most every village symbols of the Roman Catho- 
lic faith are kept. But few, if any, Indian villages 
have resident priests. Once or twice a year a 
traveling priest comes to the town. During his 
stay of two or three days the Indians are nomi- 
nally Christian and orthodox. There is a great 
orgy of drinking and carousing. The priest holds 
a mass—in Latin. He may, perhaps, preach a 
sermon—in Spanish. Neither mass nor sermon 
is understood. Then, at the end of the two or 
three days, the priest rides away and the Indians 
turn back to their paganism until, some months 
or a year hence, the priest may return. 
Overlooking the city of La Paz, the capital of 
Bolivia, there stands a high mountain. Near the 
summit of this mountain is a little shrine called 
Calvaria. On it the crucifix and the Virgin’s pic- 
ture have been erected. At this shrine one may 
see the Indians come to worship. They kneel 
there—but with their backs to the Christian sym- 
bols. Holding their eups of incense, they face 
toward the great valley and, forgetful that they 
are Christian, mutter strange incantations to 
stranger gods in their deep Aymara dialect. 
Even when the Indians are engaged in what 
some call Christian ceremonies, the manner of 
their worship is decidedly pagan. The average 
Indian, month after month, is a quiet, hard-work- 
133 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


ing, frugal individual. But when the time for 
the Christian feasts comes round his character 
transforms. The entire family—done out in the 
brightest homespun—repairs to the church. The 
father, with a tiger skin and a hideous mask and 
a festive headdress of feathers, leads the little 
group with notes from a shrill reed pipe. On foot 
the little company starts out in the early morn- 
ing for the church. There other family groups 
have gathered, and the festivalis begun. Venders 
of alcoholic drinks are there, and they do a thriv- 
ing business. To the music of pipe and drum, 
and stimulated by more and more alcohol, they 
dance in wild riot about the little church. Occa- 
sionally the dance is carried on before the altar 
itself. Fights are frequent. 

In the midst of the celebration the priest ar- 
rives. Mass is said. The priest then collects the 
tithe of chickens and silver, grain and sheep, and 
rides off to the next celebration. The supply of 
liquor and of funds running low, the Indians, one 
by one, slink back to their homes—as pagan as 
when they came. 

Pagan worship is not abandoned. Along the 
mountain roads at every summit one sees heaps 
of stones where the passer-by, if paganly devout, 
will build a little house to enclose some dangerous 
spirit. At perilous places along the trail the 
Indian will make offerings to the spirits who hide 

134 


Indians of Latin America 


in the hills). When an animal is killed for meat, 
they catch the blood and, as their ancestors from 
time immemorial have done, dash it against the 
end of their crude adobe houses. 

Dr. Burgess relates how alcohol, paganism, and 
Christianity are mixed in most Indian communi- 
ties. ‘‘On a recent occasion,’’ he says, ‘‘I entered. 
a Roman Catholic church in a little mountain 
village just south of Chiapas, Huitan, among the 
Mam Indians. I was desirous of showing a friend 
the image of the sun over the main altar. As 
soon as we had entered the church, one of the 
Indians came up to inquire what we desired. My 
answer was:‘ We have just come in to look around. 
I hope we are in no sense offending you.’ 

‘< ‘No,’ answered the Indian, ‘but we know that 
you have come to teach us a new religion. We 
are only ignorant Indians, and we want to ask 
you some questions. Please tell us what St. Peter 
has left us.’ | 

“‘T answered, taking out my New Testament 
from my pocket: ‘St. Peter has left us two very 
precious Epistles which form part of the New 
Testament—the book which I hold in my hand. 
Listen and you will hear what he has to say to 
you and to all men.’ And I began to read. 

‘<The Indian who had asked the question was 
taken by surprise and felt that he was being hu- 
miliated as I read the words of St. Peter. He 

135 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


soon interrupted with a question which I have 
found it difficult to answer; namely, ‘How old are 
you?’ 

‘*¢*T am thirty-eight.’ 

‘‘The Indian, drawing himself to his full height, 
declared himself to be fifty-four years old and 
he asked to know whether a man of fifty-four 
could be taught anything by a man of thirty- 
eight. His companions agreed that such a thing 
was impossible. 

‘¢ «he sun has shone on the man who is fifty- 
four years old many more times than on the 
man who is thirty-eight. Of course he can learn 
nothing from such an infant,’ they declared. 

‘‘Then the Indian spokesman said, ‘Now I will 
tell you what St. Peter left us,’ and drawing 
from under his blanket a bottle of so-called guaro 
[ West Indian rum], he shouted, ‘This is what St. 
Peter has left us,’ and all of his companions 
chimed in, declaring that he was right.’’ 

Thus, after four centuries of priestly super- 
vision, the Indian—underneath a so-called Chris- 
tian veneer—is still a pagan as he was in the 
days before the Spaniards invaded his country. 

As I have already indicated, there are, prob- 
ably, about 10,000,000 people of Indian blood 
in Latin America. The number of the non-Span- 
ish-speaking Indians, however, is only about 
2,050,000. These Indians are scattered in tribes, 

136 


Indians of Latin America 


large and small. There are, for instance, one 
tribe of 500,000 members; three of between 
200,000 and 300,000; one of between 150,000 and 
200,000 ; seventeen over 20,000; five between 10,000 
and 20,000; six between 5,000 and 10,000; and 
seven having less than 1,000. These, of course, 
are only government estimates. They probably 
understate rather than overstate the totals. 

It is significant that in the United States there 
are small Indian tribes of less than 2,000 mem- 
bers in which three foreign missionary boards 
are at work. There is not one missionary to 
the more than 2,000,000 Indians of Mexico. Yet 
there are 444 ordained Protestant ministers, 202 
Catholic priests, and more than 800 Protestant 
assistants for the 340,000 people with Indian 
blood in the United States. Clearly, the field of 
Christian work among the Indians of Latin Amer- 
ica is but barely entered. 

In the early days of the Spanish conquest one 
man—Las Casas by name—stands out as the first 
exponent of the rights of the Indians and the 
first Christian missionary to them. Las Casas 
had been a planter. But the injustices and ex- 
ploitation to which the Indians were subjected 
in the name of Christianity aroused Las Casas. 
He became a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. 
He gave up his plantation and appeared as the 
champion of the rights of the Indians particu- 

137 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


larly in Mexico and Central America. His work 
made headway. The King of Spain granted him 
concessions. Many Indians were won by his 
peaceful policy. But later missionaries were less 
pacific, and much of the work of Las Casas was 
destroyed. 

About a century ago another group of mis- 
sionaries entered Central America. They were 
German Moravians and established a mission in 
Nicaragua. ‘They translated the Bible into the 
tribal language and established churches and 
schools. At the present time they have a com- 
munity of several thousand Protestant Indians. 

In the last fifty years a widespread Evangeli- 
cal movement has developed in Latin America. 
But this movement has touched only the fringes 
of Indian territory. Missionary organizations are 
only gradually awakening to the tremendous ap- 
peal of these ten thousand ‘‘other Americans.’’ 
The Indians themselves are, in most cases, eager 
for help. ‘They desire schools and churches. 
Their hard experience at the hands of other 
foreigners has led them to harbor a suspicion of 
foreigners in general, but the few Evangelical mis- 
sionaries who have penetrated their land, to live 
among them, have helped to a very great extent 
to allay this suspicion. 

The best proof of the value of missionary work 
among the Indians is found in a description of 

138 


Indians of Latin America 


the sort of Christians these Indians make when 
they are given the opportunity to accept the free 
faith which Jesus represented. 

There was, for example, Pedro Poz. Pedro was 
a shepherd lad who cared for his father’s sheep 
on the hills of Cantel in Guatemala. While still 
a youth, the influence of alcohol fell upon him. 
He was victimized by it. His father, hoping to 
save the boy, forced him into the army. In the 
army Pedro put on European dress, learned Span- 
ish, and kept on drinking. After a time he was 
court-martialed and sent to prison for a year. In 
jail Pedro learned to read. A tract telling some- 
thing of the message of Jesus fell into his hands. 
He read it. He was interested. He secured a 
Bible and, determined to follow this new gospel, 
he took his stand as a Christian immediately upon 
his release. He went back to his own village and 
there began to preach. He was threatened by the 
people, but he kept on preaching. He was stoned 
by the villagers, but he could not be driven from 
his faith. At length a church was built in his 
village, and now over one hundred members have 
been won to Christ’s way of life by the ministry 
of Pedro Poz. 

Anselmo was another drunken Indian lad. He 
was a peon and was sold from master to master. 
There came a day when he fled from his servitude 
to the jungles near the Pacific coast. Here in 

139 . 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


the home of one of his masters he heard. for the 
first time the simple story of the gospel of Christ. 
He accepted that gospel and went out to preach 
it. Now his old impetuousness and power is de- 
voted to personal work, and already he has won 
several hundred of his fellows to the faith that 
he has found. Among these converts were no 
less than ten witch doctors. 

Another Indian is Marcelino. At the time of 
his conversion Marcelino was fifty years old. He 
was a pagan of the pagans; he supported three 
wives and zealously participated in the witch- 
doctor practises of the village. When the gospel 
reached Marcelino, he immediately made provi- 
sion for two of his wives and married the third. 
He took his stand in the community as a Christian 
—not an easy thing to do. When he had cleared 
his little plot of ground of the mortgage upon 
it, he gave of his income to the church. Marcelino 
is merely a barefooted Indian, but during the last 
three years he has given no less than three thou- 
sand dollars—American money—to the work of 
the church. Four nights out of every week, with- 
out remuneration, Marcelino devotes himself to 
instructing his fellow Indians in the gospel. 

A new Christian church has been recently ded- 
icated in one of these Indian communities. It is 
an imposing structure for an Indian village. It 
will seat one thousand people. The work of erect- 

~ 140 


Indians of Latin America 


ing this building was done entirely by the Indians 
themselves, under the leadership of one of their 
own number who had told the story of the gospel 
and its meaning to these other Latin Americans. 
Here and there—much too few in number—Chris- 
tian schools have been built. And the Indian boys 
and girls make excellent pupils. They learn 
eagerly and their parents are proud of their ac- 
complishments. In other villages dispensaries 
have been established to help to drive back the 
fear of disease and pestilence, which is almost as 
great a plague as the darkness of superstition and 
ignorance. And still the work of reaching these 
ten million Indians is only begun. 

An old Indian one day appeared before the La 
Paz American Institute in Bolivia. He wore his 
homespun clothes, hide sandals, and a variegated 
poncho across his shoulders. He came stooping 
into the school grounds, his son’s trunk on his 
back. On being presented to the headmaster of 
the school, he dropped to his knees and kissed 
the extended hand and begged that his son might 
be enrolled. Two years later this Indian boy, 
competing with white Bolivians and with for- 
eigners, climbed to the top of his class and won 
the highest awards in English. And every quar- 
ter the Indian father came in from the mountains 
in his sandals and homespun to bring the boy’s 
tuition. 

141 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Thus, an awakening is slowly coming among 
these other Americans. Mission boards are be- 
ginning to realize this fact. Missionaries are 
being sent to these humbler, but no less worthy 
peoples. And up to the highlands and down 
through the forest vastnesses of Latin America 
new trails are being blazed. The old trails—some 
of which remain—were marked with torture and 
oppression, with the slave-driver’s lash, with fear 
and hate, with superstition and idolatry. The new 
trails carry travelers of a different sort, bear- 
ing different burdens. These are the men and 
women who are coming to stand with the Indian 
and help him out of his old squalor. The mer- 
chandise they carry is not the merchandise of 
exploitation. There are no slave-whips, no alco- 
hol—only a few books, but chiefly one Great Book 
and a faith in what these Indians with the guid- 
ance of that Great Book may become. 

And a few Indians come to talk with these 
strange travelers. They hear a new—a wholly dif- 
ferent—story of a Man who died that their little 
community might have a chance to be cleaner and 
their lives happier, their minds freed of fear and 
their hearts filled with a confident love. And after 
a time a school is built. And then a church. 
Other foreigners may come to the village and 
young Indians return from the big schools down 
the mountainside to carry on the work of proving 

142 


Indians of Latin America 


that this Man, who was the Son of God, can do 
the things which He died to accomplish. 

That is the story of the Indians of Latin 
America. It is a story of dangerous mountain 
passes; of lonely villages; of threats and ston- 
ings; of bright-eyed boys and girls; and parents 
enlightened by Christian influences. It is a story 
that is only in its beginnings. But ten millions 
of these Latin Americans, who are not seen along 
the hustling, crowded thoroughfares or on the 
boulevards, are in need, today, of men and women 
who will give of themselves and what they possess 
to speed that story to completion. 


143 


VIT 
Results 


Tis is a chapter about results. After all, an 
enterprise, business or otherwise, is judged by 
the sort of article it produces. It does not much 
matter how big a factory is built, how many peo- 
ple are employed, how much its capital may be, 
or how widely the goods are advertised; that 1s, 
it does not matter much, in the long run—unless 
the product of that factory is of value. More 
than one big business has collapsed because it 
was based on an effort to pass off something 
artificial as the real thing. 

Another thing that is good to recall about en- 
terprises and their products is this: you cannot 
always judge the merits of an article by the size 
of the organization that produces it. The best 
shoes do not come, necessarily, from the biggest 
manufacturer; or the richest cream from the larg- 
est dairy; the wisest men from the universities 
with the greatest enrolment; or the most religious 
men from the biggest churches. 

It is necessary to keep these facts in mind when 
we come to this study of the products of the mis- 
sionary enterprise in Latin America. HEvangeli- 
cal work, comparatively speaking, is on a small 
scale. But the products of that work—what of 

144 


ae 





INDIAN Boy CARRYING A Pack 


SMALL INDIAN BOYS ARE FREQUENTLY MADE VERITABLE SLAVES OY 
MODERN INDUSTRY BY EMPLOYERS WHO WISH TO PAY NEGLIGIBLE 
WAGES FOR THE SAKE OF GAINING LARGE PROFITS. 


“SCUVINVdS GNV SNVIGNI HLOd AO SINVAONAOSAG FHL WOA AACIAOYd SQHL AUV SALL 
-IAILOV ANOSHIOHM ANVW CNV ‘VOINAWV HLOOS OLNI SdOOUL LAOOS AOT ONION 
-OULNI NI GHYaaNOIC OHM ASOHL SNOWY AYAM HLYON GTHL WOU SALTAVNOISSTIV 


DNILAIVG SLAONDG xA0g 





Results 


them? It is to an examination of some of these 
results of missionary work in Latin America that 
we shall now turn our attention. And at the end, 
it will be clear, I hope, that here, as elsewhere, 
size has no necessary relation to quality. 

The history of Latin American missions is one 
of trials by fire. Missionaries did not go out— 
do not go out today—to easy jobs. The com 
munities to which they go are often hostile te 
Evangelical effort. The priests frequently stir the 
people into open expressions of this hostility. 
There are stonings and threats and abuse. Tn 
some Latin American states it is true that the 
Hvangelical missionaries have won a large place 
for themselves in the esteem of the people, and 
their program no longer meets with the old oppe- 
sition. But in other places it is still the case that 
obstacles of every sort are thrown in the mission- 
ary’s path to prevent his carrying forward the 
work he has come to establish. There are no soft 
seats-by-the-fire for these Christian pioneers. 

Nor is there an easy path ahead of those whe 
accept the Christian faith as these Protestants 
interpret it. Such a step frequently means turn- 
ing away from one’s family, the sacrifice of social 
position, enduring scorn and ridicule, and even 
death itself. Men and women, old or young, do 
not accept the Christian faith of the Evangelical 
missionaries, unless it has laid such a hold upon 

145 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


their lives that regardless of the sacrifices in- 
volved it cannot be denied. 

ft must be said here, as we have tried to indi- 
eate elsewhere, that Evangelical work in Latin 
America is not carried on for the purpose of sup- 
planting Roman Catholicism. It is altogether im- 
probable that these nations will ever become Prot- 
estant in the sense in which that term is under- 
stood in the United States and Canada. Evan- 
gelical work, however, is making a contribution 
in that it is helping to change the moral climate 
ef these nations. It is bringing not a new, but 
an enriched gospel to the people of Latin America. 
it is opening the way for deeper and more abid- 
ing personal religious experiences. It is, more- 
ever, linking the gospel of Jesus Christ with the 
great, enlightening, democratic movements that 
are abroad in the world. That has been and is 
the message of Evangelical missionaries to the 
people of these Latin countries. 

There is a very old and justly famous public 
square in Lima, the capital of Peru. Several cen- 
turies ago the dread Inquisition held Lima in its 
bloody grasp. All those who were suspected of 
heresy or unbelief in the dogmas of the Church 
were summarily put to death. In this public 
square more than a hundred people were burned. 

Some three centuries after the Inquisition an- 
ether force entered the city of Lima. James 

146 


Resulis 


Thomson, who landed in Brazil in 1818, had 
crossed the continent on mule-back and come te 
the city of Lima. Thomson’s one purpose im 
Latin America was to organize schools and dis- 
tribute Bibles. In Lima he met General San 
Martin, who welcomed him and forthwith gave the 
priests of a certain monastery three days in which 
to evacuate in order that Mr. Thomson’s first 
school might be established there. 

And to the old square of the Inquisition Mr. 
Thomson brought his Bibles. He gathered the 
people around him and explained to them the 
meaning of the ‘‘new’’ book. Bibles were sold 
to many people. The influence of this work 
spread rapidly. The governor of one of the prov- 
inces of Ecuador encouraged the sale of the Book. 
Bible Societies sprang up. The interest in the 
newly discovered word of God spread rapidly. 

But reaction came. The Roman Catholic or- 
ganization pitted its power against Mr. Thomson. 
Parents were forced to withdraw their children 
from the schools which he established. Families 
that had purchased the Bibles were forced to sur- 
render them to the nearest priest. The door which , 
Mr. Thomson opened was forced shut, and he re- 
turned to Scotland. 

Others followed, however, in the path of this 
pioneer. And each new Christian campaigner 
was faced with the same difficulties and perils. 

147 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


About the same time that Mr. Thomson came 
eut from Scotland, Allen F. Gardiner began his 
service in the British navy. He rose to the rank 
of captain and as a naval officer cruised to remote 
quarters of the globe. And in these districts the 
plight of the natives, their ignorance and squalor 
and superstitious fear, laid hold upon him. He 
came of a sudden to feel a responsibility to help 
some of these backward peoples and abandoned 
his naval career for that of a missionary. 

In 1841 Captain Gardiner set out to the Falk- 
land Islands to bring the Christian message to 
the Indians. He chose these islands because they 
were British territory, and from there he hoped 
to reach the people of Patagonia. He was soon 
forced to go back to England for aid, however, 
and after securing this, he returned to Patagonia, 
only to be driven out by the bitter hostility of the 
natives who daily threatened his life. 

. But Captain Gardiner was not disheartened. 
He made his way into southeastern Bolivia and 
territories adjoining. Then, after long trips of 
religious exploration, he went, with his compan- 
tons, back toward the Cape to establish a mission 
among the Indians of Tierra del Fuego. His 
equipment was so insufficient, however, that he 
was forced to make another trip to England for 
aid. He then returned to this station with six 
other pioneers for Christ. 

148 


Results 


Then came starvation. The Indians stole their 
food. They were driven to Spaniard Harbor. 
A supply ship, en route to their rescue, was de- 
layed. No food or water was to be found. Daily 
and hourly they scanned the sea’s horizon for 
some sight of the promised ship, and nightly they 
joined together in prayer that their rescuers 
might come before it was too late. The ship did 
come. But more than a month before its arrival 
Captain Gardiner and the six stalwart champions 
of the Cross who had come out with him were 
dead. At the entrance to the cavern where the 
bodies of this little company of pioneers were 
found, Captain Gardiner had traced these words 
from the sixty-second Psalm: 


My Soul, wait thou only upon God 
For my expectation is from him. 
He only is my rock and my salvation: 
He is my defense: I shall not be moved. 
In God is my salvation and my glory: 
The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. 
Trust in Him at all times: 
_ Ye people, pour out your heart before Him: 
God is a refuge for us. 


That spirit—the spirit of Captain Gardiner— 
has dominated and still dominates those who have 
dared to give of themselves that Christ may have 
a chance in Latin America. The history of this 
Christian advance is written in the blood and 

149 


Loaking Ahead with Latin America 


tears of those who have sacrificed to carry for- 
ward, over one more redoubt, the banners of 
Christ. On the ground where these advances have 
been won new life is now springing up. And from 
the blood and tears, the suffering and sacrifice 
of these early missionaries there has come hope 
and happiness and, here and there, individuals 
fit to help in the building of the Kingdom of God 
on earth. 

In the early sixties, Father José Conceicao was 
a young priest of the Roman Catholic Church at 
Brotas, in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Now 
Father José was ot ministerial in the accepted 
sense. He was a sporting man of some reputa- 
tion. He lived a gay life. He was a lover of good 
horses and knew the lure of the track. 

One day, however, he was asked to preach a 
sermon on St. Anthony. He agreed and proceeded 
to find out in a Latin Bible, just who St. Anthony 
was. Few churches in Brazil at that time had 
Bibles and fewer padres could read them. But 
although Father José found a Bible, he failed to 
find any record of St. Anthony in it. But he did 
find a good many other things that interested him 
greatly. The Bible, he suddenly realized, was 
neither appreciated nor preached. Consequently 
he began to preach it. His sermons were fervid 
discussions of Bible truths—the truths that could 
be applied in his own parish. 

150 


Results 


The Bishop, hearing of the strange proceedings, 
set forth to remonstrate with the young priest. 
But Father José could not be turned from the 
gospel he had discovered. The Bishop, aceord- 
ingly, made public proclamation to the effect that 
Father José was insane and forbade him from 
exercising his priestly offices. 

Father José replied: ‘‘ All right, since I am 
insane, I must be irresponsible. Therefore I shall 
go forth to teach.’’ 

He set out, on foot, to spread the truths of the 
Bible. He soon came into touch with Evangelical 
missionaries. He was ordained and became the 
first Brazilian Protestant minister. His efforts 
were unceasing. Alone, up and down Brazil, 
Father José tramped. He lived with the people 
to whom he brought the message. On every hand 
there were persecutions. He was stoned. He 
was driven from village to village. Food was de- 
nied him. People closed their doors in his face. 
But he plodded on. At length one day, he fell 
unconscious by the roadside, ill of malarial fever. 
He was found by the commander of an ammuni- 
tion factory in the vicinity and looked after by 
him. Father José never left this ammunition fae- 
tory. He died and was buried in the military cem- 
etery. But so effectively had he preached the 
gospel there that the colonel himself became a 
Christian and later a translator of Christian liter- 

151 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


ature. And today, in the country where Father 
José labored, fully thirty churches owe their ex- 
istence to his pioneering. 

Evangelical missions have had wide influence 
also among the women of Latin America. You 
ean always count upon it that the women will be 
found in the forefront of any good movement, and 
this is true in Latin America in spite of the cus- 
toms that are designed to keep women in a sec- 
ondary position. The story of one of these women 
ts told by Miss Florence E. Smith, of Chile. 

**When I first came to Chile,’’ writes Miss 
Smith, ‘‘I used to go out to one of our outlying 
ehapels on Sunday morning to help in the Sunday 
school, and there I came to know a young girl 
just entering adolescence, Hortensia Soza. With 
her family, she had been brought to the chapel 
by an Evangelical neighbor. She was fresh-faced 
and deeply attentive. Her father was a stone- 
mason and her mother mentally infirm, so that 
Hortensia was already compelled to earn her own 
living as a seamstress. Her education had been 
of the scantiest, limited to the rudiments of the 
three R’s, but the gospel was her meat and drink 
and she never missed a service. Later on, in- 
spired by the desire to help in evangelistic meet- 
imgs, she took time to come into Valparaiso once 
a week to learn to play the baby organ. Her 
hands were coarsened by work and her ear was 

152 


Results 


none too fine, but her desire to learn knew no 
barriers. 

‘‘In the course of events, one of the promising 
young men in the Valparaiso church began an as- 
siduous attendance at this chapel, drawn thither 
by the wild-rose beauty of Hortensia. As usual, 
the path of true love was beset by thorns: there 
was no place to meet except the church, where 
acquaintance must be limited to a perfunctory 
handshake because of the unfriendly eyes which 
in Chile see flagrant immorality in every attempt 
at friendliness between man and maid. Horten- 
sia’s family, too, eyed the young man with sus- 
picion because of his gentlemanly bearing and 
superior social position, he being not an artisan, 
but a clerk in the city post-office, and wide and 
deep are class distinctions in Chile. The court- 
ship was carried on, then, perforce, in the public 
parks, and unlike so many perilous affairs of this 
kind, it came to the good consummation of an hon- 
orable marriage, and young Hortensia went to live 
with a mother-in-law. 

‘‘This mother-in-law was of the old school, and 
so too was the young husband, who had his own 
ideas as to the sphere of woman, and it was no 
part of his plan that his pretty bird, now safely 
caged, should sing for other ears than his own. 
The young wife confided to me with tears that 
he would not permit her to visit the Sunday-school 

153 


Looking Ahead with Latin ‘America 


pupils and did not like her to be friendly with 
the people in the church. 

‘‘Together we laid plans as to how we should 
educate this medieval husband, and thanks to 
this young woman’s character, which is that rare 
combination of the sweet yieldingness of the dove 
and the wisdom of the serpent,—without its sting, 
—today Hortensia Soza de Martinez is the out- 
standing woman in the large church of which 
she is a member, honored and beloved and active 
in every good work. Her husband’s jealous sus- 
picion has been transmuted into unfaltering trust. 
She comes and goes with all the freedom of a 
North American woman, without a question. 
Leader of a large group of Philatheas, at times 
organist and choir-leader, and president of the 
Woman’s Society, her beautiful face and character 
are an object lesson to all who come in contact 
with her. 

‘‘Sefiora de Martinez’ husband puts his month’s 
salary into her lap and together they make their 
monthly budget. ‘Of course!’ do I hear you say? 
But it is not ‘of course’ in Chile, where the aver- 
age woman has no idea how much her husband 
earns and has no word in how his salary shall 
be spent, beyond the small sum he concedes her 
for the day’s rations. Together Hortensia and 
her husband have weathered many an economic 
storm, but they have educated her three brothers 

154 


Fibaults 


and sisters, early deprived of a mother’s care, 
and today own their own charming little home.’’ 

Another story of a Chilean woman is that of 
Martina Pangue. In a beautiful valley hidden 
among the foothills of a coast-range a young girl 
was betrayed and abandoned by the son of a 
neighbor. With her child in her arms, this young 
girl was forced to leave her home and earn her 
own living. The temptations and the economic 
necessities of life were too severe. She fell into 
evil ways, and finally settled in Vina del Mar 
where her home was not of a good kind. 

One day, however, a passer-by threw a little 
red book through the open door of this house. 
That night Martina Pangue picked up the book 
and began to read it. Reading was not easy, for 
she had received little schooling. But line by line 
she managed to make out the meaning of the 
words in the little red book. Her mind was keen, 
and the book was something altogether new. She 
read through the night and by morning had fin- 
ished. The book was called the Gospel According 
to John. 

‘“‘Tf this book speaks the truth,’’ said Martina, 
‘then I am altogether wrong in the life I am 
leading. I must know more of this.’’ 

She immediately made inquiries in the neigh- 
borhood. She found her way to the little Eivan- 
gelical chapel and began to attend its services. 

155 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


The people eyed her with suspicion. They knew 
her evil ways and doubted her. But Martina con- 
tinued to attend the services, despite these sus- 
picions. And after many weeks she accepted the 
gospel. 

Accepting the gospel meant that Martina must 
begin to live it at once in her own home. She 
proceeded at once to rid it of evil influences. She 
took her children with her to church. After a 
long probation she was made a member of the 
Vina Church and later, not content with a mere 
membership, Martina was made the first Chilean 
Bible woman. Wherever she goes she carries with 
her the message of the little red book. On a 
Sunday she will come to the chapel with a group 
of boys and girls whom she has gathered. Her 
gospel is simple and to the point. 

‘‘God cleaned up my life,’’ she will say. ‘‘He 
can clean up yours.’’ 

There seemed to be a peculiar bond of sym- 
pathy between Jesus and some of the humble fish- 
ermen who lived near the Sea of Galilee. No part 
of the New Testament is more inspiring than the 
story of how these humble men were taken from 
their nets and made fishers of men. To a similar 
class of people in Colombia the gospel has made 
a powerful appeal and resulted in great trans- 
formations. One may see in the old city of Carta- 
gena modern fishermen following in the footsteps 

156 


Results 


of those who hauled in their nets on the shores of 
Galilee. 

Juan, an outstanding personality among these 
Cartagenian fishermen, began to preach the gospel 
even before he gave up his nets. Juan had little 
education. He belonged to the despised mixed 
class. His ideals were no better and his horizon 
no wider than the people among whom he lived. 
But when he heard the story of Christ, he began 
immediately to study. When the missionaries 
were forced out of the city, Juan gathered the 
little group of believers about him and became 
their teacher. Without education and with no 
qualification other than his own intense devotion 
to Christ, Juan carried on the work. 

A fellow citizen of Cartagena who had studied 
abroad and returned to the city heard of the work 
of Juan. He attended a service at his little 
chapel. ‘‘I have seen and heard a wonderful 
thing,’’? he said afterward. ‘‘I know that man 
Juan and his people well. But I would not have 
believed it was possible for him to do what he 
did on the Sunday morning I visited him. He 
announced and led the singing of several hymns 
with dignity and grace. He made one of the most 
solemn and tender prayers I ever heard. He 
read the Scriptures so that I understood every 
word he uttered. He then gave an address and 
used arguments and language which many an edu- 

157 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


cated man might envy, in order to teach his 
friends that as our Lord has helped them to live 
better lives, so in turn they ought to help others.”’ 

Of an entirely different class was Justo Cubilo, 
doctor of jurisprudence, a resident of Montevideo, 
the capital of Uruguay. While still a student in 
the public schools of Uruguay, Dr. Cubilo became 
interested in Evangelical Christianity. He at- 
tended Sunday school and at the age of fourteen 
became a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. From then until the time of his death 
Dr. Cubilo was an outstanding leader among the 
Protestant Christians of Uruguay. Twice he 
eame to the United States as a lay delegate to 
the General Conference of the Methodist Church. 
He was superintendent of a large Sunday school 
and teacher of one of the classes. He was also 
President of the Temperance Society and active 
in the diffusion of temperance principles. 

The leadership of Dr. Cubilo was recognized by 
the Government. He was President of the So- 
ciety of the Friends of Public Instruction, a mem- 
ber of the Municipality, a professor of Constitu- 
tional Law in the Department of Law and Social 
Sciences in the State University and for many 
years was secretary of the Supreme Court of 
Uruguay. 

Other individuals—a small army of them—might 
be mentioned here whose lives stand out, head 

158 


Results 


and shoulders above their fellows, because they 
have found Christ and sought to spread the ex- 
pression of his spirit. No one questioning Evan- 
gelicalism in Latin America could come into touch 
with these products of that enterprise and doubt 
its supreme value in making better men and 
women and more Christ-like communities. 

If you will look at the map of South America, 
you will find that the boundary between Argen- 
tina and Chile is marked by the high crest of the 
Andes. Now between Chile and Argentina, dur- 
ing the last century, there were frequent disputes 
about this boundary and a most bitter hatred. 
War always seemed in the offing. Not until Gen- 
eral Julio Roca became President of Argentina 
in 1880 did peace and prosperity seem to come 
to these nations. 

During the administration of General Roca, 
Argentina developed rapidly. Vast new fields 
were planted. Vineyards were laid out. Fine 
breeds of stock were introduced. Railroads were 
built and the cities improved. Chile, too, entered 
upon a similar era of prosperity. 

Then, in 1886, General Roca retired from office 
and trouble loomed again. The high Andes had 
not been completely explored. Neither nation 
~ knew exactly where the boundary lay. Both na- 
tions believed that war was inevitable, and great 
sums of money were spent in preparation for it. 

159 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


In 1898, General Roca was reelected President. 
A few weeks prior to his election Chile sent an 
ultimatum to Argentina demanding arbitration. 
But it seemed as though war would be the only 
outcome. There were many and powerful factions 
in both countries that advocated war. But other 
people believed that war would mean the ruin of 
both. 

Then, at a critical moment, the British King 
offered his services for arbitration and the offer 
was accepted. The award was also accepted. 
War was averted. 

But the two countries did not stop there. They 
proposed to prevent the possibility of any war 
in the future. It was agreed, therefore, that on 
the boundary line, high in the Andes, between 
Argentina and Chile a statue of Christ, the Prince 
of Peace, should be erected. This was to stand 
perpetually as a memorial to the peace pact be- 
tween the nations. The monument itself was cast 
at an arsenal in Buenos Aires from cannon taken 
from an old fortress there. 

The site for the statue was selected on the 
Cumbre Ridge in the Andes—a divide scarcely 
more than a quarter of a mile across. There one 
may stand and look off to the west into Chile, and 
east into Argentina. It was on the summit of 
the Andes, in 1817, that the army of San Martin 
camped while on the great march across the 

160 


“SNOIDHY GALIGVHNINO YAHLO GNV SLSAYOL HONNOYHL HLvd 
SIGHL NO SAHYOLUNGAGV DNILIOXH JO SLYOS ITTV OLINI NOW NALAO SHOLAAINLSIA 
WIdid ‘SLOIMLSIG ONIAILOAO NI PNIAIT ATdOdd HOVAL OL YOAVAGNA AIGHL NI 


MOVAISUOFT NO dIuy, NOILASINLSIG: AIsIg W 





“VOISGINVY NILVI JO ALY WIIO IVYOW FIL 
NOdA LOU ONILAITGNA NV GWAVH OL GNONOd SI GWONANTANTI YIAL “OTAVd CYS 
LV WOIAWHS WAIT YOL GCANIVUL ATAV ONIGG WAV AdAL GIGNUIdS JO NAW SNOOX 


TIZVig ‘olnvg OVS LV AUYVNINGAG TVOIOIOUH]T, AHL NI SLNAGOALY 





Results 


Andes, when Chileans and Argentines stood side 
by side in their struggle for freedom from Spain. 
There, too, stands a little stone house built many 
years ago to provide protection for travelers— 
Argentines or Chileans—who may be journeying 
over the pass. Thus the spot was hallowed by 
the ideals of peace. 

- The statue of Christ was erected on a summit 
pass. The monument is of bronze, twenty-six feet 
in height, surmounting a pedestal, rough hewn 
from the rock of the mountains. 

On March 13, 1904, the statue was unveiled. 
A great pilgrimage of men and women and chil- 
dren from both countries—Argentina to the east, 
Chile to the west—brought thousands into the 
Andes for the ceremony. On the day appointed 
the great throng parted in two groups. The 
Argentines assembled on the soil of Chile; the 
Chileans gathered on the soil of Argentina. Be- 
tween them, facing toward the north, stood the 
Christ, their perpetual symbol of peace. His left 
hand supports the cross and his right hand is 
outstretched in blessing. On the base of the statue 
are two tablets—one presented by the working- 
men of Buenos Aires and the other by the work- 
ing-women. Inscribed on one of these tablets are 
these words: 

‘*Sooner shall these mountains crumble into 
dust than shall the Argentines and Chileans break 

161 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


the peace which they have pledged at the feet of 
Christ the Redeemer.”’ 

The statue was dedicated as a symbol for peace 
to the whole world. Its erection brought the 
ideals of Christ into practise. Immediately there- 
after Chile sold her warships and spent the 
amount secured to make improvements. A year 
later the Chilean-Bolivian dispute was settled by 
peaceful means. A railroad since has been built 
to span the Andes from Chile to Argentina—one 
of the engineering feats of all time. 

And still the Christ stands there—on the crest 
of the Andes—lifting the symbols of His gospel 
so that all who come may known that His spirit 
has been built into the life of these nations. 


Christ of the Andes, Christ of Everywhere, 
Great lover of the hills, the open air, 

And patient lover of impatient men 

Who blindly strive and sin and strive again,— 
Thou Living Word, larger than any creed, 

Thou Love Divine, uttered in human deed,— 

Oh, teach the world, warring and wandering still, 
Thy way of peace, the footpath of Good Will!? 


Thus, too, the individuals whom we have met 
in this chapter stand as the representatives of 
Christ, built into the lives of men. We have seen 
the leaders. They stand out—as the Christ of 
the Andes. But in countless communities, in high 


1 Henry van Dyke. 
162 


Results 


and low estate; in Indian villages and in houses 
of parliament; in factories and in university halls; 
up and down through Latin America, from north- 
ern Mexico across the Caribbean and down to the 
tip of the southern continent, other men and 

women are holding high, today, the cross of Christ. 
- They are living the gospel of Christ. By their 
lives they are consecrating the pledge that until 
these mountains crumble into dust they will stand. 
forth to proclaim the message they have learned 
‘Cat the feet of Christ the Redeemer.’’ 


163 


VIII 
Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Few sections of Europe are more beautiful than 
that of the French Savoy. It is a district of 
wide, fertile valleys and little rivers; of tiny 
towns, their houses red-tiled and their streets 
cobbled and quaint; of long, winding ribbons of 
road that stretch through poplar avenues up into 
foothills that shoulder Mont Blane. 

I rode, one time, up through a section of the 
French Savoy by the best bicycle route. All day 
long, as we journeyed on, we passed, on the road, 
farmers tilling their land, or going to the market- 
place, their two-wheeled carts piled high with 
produce and drawn by lumbering oxen. Late in 
the afternoon, we approached the town of Cham- 
bery. The road toward the town wound up a 
little valley around a great cliff at its farther end. 
At the highest point of this cliff there stood a 
great stone cross. The afternoon sun shone upon 
it—a sort of sacred sentinel on guard over the 
valley. 

As we passed a French farmer on the road, 
I stopped him and inquired, in the best French 
I could summon, the meaning of the cross. He 
looked up at it as though he had forgotten it was 
there. 

164 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


**QOh, that!’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t know why it was 
put there. Years ago the church erected it. I’m 
not sure that it means anything in particular.’’ 

And we rode on to Chambery, around the cor- 
ner of the cliff, where a turn of the road con- 
cealed the cross from view. But I have thought 
many times since about that cross in the valley 
of the Oise. To men and women who come and 
go, in the fields and along the farms, it does not 
mean ‘‘anything in particular.’’ The truth of 
the matter is, it stands too far above them. They 
never see it. It has no relation to their daily 
work, to the crops and homes, and to the happi- 
ness of their families. It is forgotten because it 
is too remote. 7 

But, certainly, the Christ who glorified the 
Cross never intended that this symbol of his mes- 
sage should be removed from the folk He came 
to help. Down there in the valley, among people, 
Christ would walk, were He to return to earth. 
And no greater obligation rests upon us who 
seek to follow Him than to take the Cross and 
erect it in the homes and lives of men where it 
will have a daily meaning for them. 

The cross on the cliff above this little French 
valley typifies, in many ways, the historical re- 
lation of organized Christianity to the people of 
Latin America. We ask, or will be asked by 
others, why we should carry the gospel to a con- 

165 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


tinent where the Roman Catholic Church is so 
widely organized? And it is true enough that 
the symbols of the gospel are established in Latin 
America. On the hills, along the roads, in count- 
less shrines and churches and cathedrals, the holy 
emblems of the Christian faith have been erected. 
But still the Cross, in its true meaning, stands 
apart from the life of the people. Itis there upon 
the cliff. And beneath it men and women carry 
on, day after day, forgetful of its meaning, not 
knowing its full significance. 

The Evangelical churches are not in Latin 
America to bring new symbols. They are there 
to give life to those symbols that are already 
there. But they are also there to give those sym- 
bols the secondary place they were intended to 
hold. Hvery Evangelical missionary, every school 
and church is giving, not a new Cross and a new 
Christ, but the same Cross and the same Christ 
glorified with new meaning and enshrined still 
on the hills of Latin America, but more in the 
hearts of Latin American peoples. The Christ— 
the symbol—may be seen everywhere. The Christ 
—the life—must be developed. To bring that 
development is the reason—the one reason—that 
Protestantism has gone to work in nations where, 
already, the Roman Catholic Church has been 
established for centuries. 

It is necessary for us to know that in Latin 

166 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


America the Roman Catholic Church, with its 
myriad religious symbols, has often crowded out 
the Christ. There are evidences of religion on 
every hand. Worship, priests, regular services, 
bishops, nuns—the outward aspects are there. In. 
theory, the fundamentals of religion are also there. 
Roman Catholic theology adheres to a belief in 
the Holy Trinity; in the divinity of Christ; in the 
incarnation and the redemptive power of Christ; 
in the remission of sins; the resurrection from 
the dead. They have, also, the Bible. 

How, then, do they crowd out the Christ? 

In order to see this, let us enter one of their 
great cathedrals. It is a beautiful building archi- 
tecturally. Before it is a wide court. Two mas- 
sive doors mark the entrance. Inside is semi- 
darkness. Worshipers entering before us dip 
their fingers in holy water beside the door, cross 
themselves devoutly, and slip off to kneel before 
a holy picture. Down the long depth of the nave 
stands the altar—the cross above it—soaring 
toward the great cathedral window. Candles, 
scores of them, flicker there uncertainly. Threads. 
of incense drift lazily and scent the air with a 
heavy fragrance. Along the walls of the cathe- 
dral are pictures and images of the Virgin Mary 
and many Saints of the Church. Before these 
images men and women and little children kneel 
in worship. But the Christ—where is He? 

167 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


A mass is said. Priests, richly gowned, stand 
before the altar. Chants—in Latin—are intoned. 
The worshipers respond. Bells ring and the wor- 
shipers drop to their knees. Bells ring again and 
the worshipers rise. There are more chants and 
responses, and the mass is over. The worshipers 
depart, dipping their fingers again in the holy 
water as they go. Most of them do not under- 
stand the chants that have been said or the 
prayers that were intoned. They have worshiped 
—but have they worshiped the Christ? 

The center of the worship often is not the 
Christ but some saint. The Cross of Christ you 
may find. There may be an image to the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus. But these few reminders of the 
great Personality of the Gospels are overshad- 
owed by the countless symbols erected to the 
worship of human beings—elected to sainthood 
by the Church. 

Here in the North, very often, the Bible has 
been so easily available that it is unappreciated, 
particularly among young people. We are hope- 
lessly unaware of the beauty of the Word. But, 
more important, we are unaware of the way in 
which the Bible—opened in the world’s dark 
places—has brought new light. It is to transmit 
this Light that the Evangelicals are in Latin 
America—to give the Bible to the people. 

To cite an illustration, let us take the case of 

168 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Juan Orts Gonzales. Dr. Gonzales, for nearly 
forty years, was a Roman Catholic. For twenty- 
six years he was a Franciscan friar, a Roman 
Catholic missionary, the president of two Roman 
Catholic colleges, a scholar in the teachings of 
the Church, a faithful member of the Church 
hierarchy. Today he is a Protestant missionary. 

‘‘T will never abuse the Roman Catholic peo- 
ple,’’ he writes. ‘‘I love them with all my heart 
and soul, and I hope to spend all my life preach- 
ing the gospel among them.”’ 

Why, then, did Dr. Gonzales turn his back upon 
his family, his friends, his career, to join with 
those who were seeking to bring the Protestant 
faith to Latin America? There are several rea- 
sons which answer that question. They must 
be set down here because they indicate the need 
and the challenge of the Latin American field. 

Dr. Gonzales, as a Catholic, believed that none 
but Catholics could be saved. Yet he saw Prot- 
estants doing the will of God, as they believed it. 
He read the New Testament. He became con- 
vineed that not Catholics alone, but all those who 
owned the name of Jesus could be saved. 

Then, again, Dr. Gonzales had been taught that 
not only individuals, but nations, were punished 
for sinfulness. And yet, Protestant nations— 
those deserving the greatest punishment accord- 
ing to Catholic belief—seemed to prosper. In 

169 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


fact, as he traveled through the world, he saw 
that Protestant countries prospered and were en- 
lightened; whereas, with great uniformity, coun- 
tries where Catholic control was most absolute 
were unenlightened and did not prosper greatly. 
If Protestantism is wrong, he reasoned, why has 
God prospered Protestant nations and punished 
Roman Catholic? 

Another reason—when Dr. Gonzales began the 
study of the history of early Christianity, he 
found that it was a faith centered in Christ. The 
Virgin Mary was not worshiped at all until the 
fourth century. Furthermore, in the early history 
of the Church, the infallibility of the Pope was 
not maintained. These doctrines, held at the cen- 
tral point of present-day Roman Catholicism in 
Latin America, were found by Dr. Gonzales to 
be no part whatever of the faith of the earliest 
Christians. 

Turning from Catholicism, however, was not 
easy. For one thing, the many and apparently 
competing denominations were a stumbling block. 
But, as he studied, it became apparent that there 
was greater unity between various Protestant 
bodies than between the orders of the Catholic 
Church. ‘‘I discovered with amazement,’’ he de- 
clared, ‘‘that while Romanists of all orders have 
an outward union through the Pope, the Prot- 
estants of all names have a more fundamental, 

170 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


vital, and satisfying unity in Christ and the 
Bible.’’ 

In realization of that unity and seeing clearly 
how the people of Latin America were in need 
of the Christ and the Bible, Dr. Gonzales became 
a Protestant. There have been other transfor- 
mations as remarkable as his. And countless men 
and women passing down the streets and along 
the roads of Latin America are coming through 
the influence of Evangelical missionaries to see 
what the Cross enshrined in their lives can mean. 

The educated classes of Latin America, increas- 
ingly, are abandoning the Church that has main- 
tained its religious supremacy for four centuries. 
The experience of laboratory and library, the 
growth of new ideas of democracy and freedom 
of conscience—these are undermining the faith 
of the people in the established religion. Indif- 
ference and atheism are on the increase. Many 
of those who lead the new movements—industrial 
and intellectual—in Latin America find that the 
bitterest opposition to liberalism and democracy 
comes from the Church. Against the Church, and 
religion, therefore, a very decided suspicion and 
mistrust has grown up. The intellectual classes, 
on the one hand, cannot support a religious or- 
ganization, the teachings of which run counter to 
their own knowledge. The laboring classes, on 
the other hand, find the Church standing against 

171 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


them in their struggle for greater industrial free. 
dom and, as a consequence, they are driven into 
an open hostility toward religion itself. 

Latin America, politically and economically, is 
controlled by the influence of some five or six 
million members of the so-called cultivated, in- 
tellectual class. In this group are the politicians, 
legislators, educators, artists, writers, profes- 
sional men, and outstanding business men. The 
club and not the cathedral is their center of in- 
terest. Religion is scoffed at. It is regarded 
as a relic of other days—outworn and useless 
for the present. The Roman Catholic Church has 
little influence with this group. Likewise the 
humble Evangelical churches very seldom make a 
point of contact with this class. 

The laboring classes constitute a newly con- 
scious group in Latin America. Industrial life 
has only developed in very recent years. But 
labor organizations have grown with the growth 
of industry. In Argentina and Chile, Brazil, 
Uruguay, and Peru there are trade-union organi- 
zations which have carried on aggressive fights 
for the winning of labor rights and privileges. 
The Roman Catholic Church, sensing the power 
of these organizations, has spent considerable 
money in an effort to reach the unions. Labor- 
ing men’s clubs have been formed in many cities. 
Catholic congresses on labor questions have been 

172 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


held. A great mass of literature has been pub- 
lished describing the efforts of the Church to help 
the laboring people. 

And yet the labor movement, for the most 
part, is strongly anti-ecclesiastical. Anti-reli- 
gious books have a wide circulation. Then a 
materialistic, anti-religious point of view has 
found wide acceptance. Religion, in fact, is reap- 
ing the harvest that the Roman Catholic Church 
sowed in standing sponsor, during much of the 
last four centuries, for methods of exploitation 
as against methods of freedom and of social 
progress. 

As a result of the fact that there has been but 
little preaching of religion as a way of life dur- 
ing the last four centuries in Latin America, 
moral standards have been reduced, in many 
places, almost to the vanishing point. The dean 
of a great law school declared recently that the 
faculty had no responsibility whatever for the 
moral life of the students. Most Latin American 
universities, in fact, exert no authority whatever 
over the life of the students outside of their 
studies. There is no dormitory life, no campus 
environment. So long as they present themselves 
at the proper times for their examinations, no 
other requirement is made. 

Under these conditions vice develops rapidly 
among the young people. Its development, more- 

173 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


over, is not often hindered by the attitude of the 
average parent. Immorality in all social classes 
is not only condoned in many places, but actually 
recommended. And there is no great moral 
agency, such as the Church, to stand resolutely 
for ideals of another sort, and to provide power 
with which to realize those ideals. 

With sexual immorality go all of the kindred 
vices—drinking, gambling, widespread dishonesty. 
Even in countries of such high culture as Peru 
this moral weakness is apparent. Dr. Javier 
Prado, rector of the University of San Marcos, 
declared recently: ‘‘Peru, after having been the 
seat of most wonderful civilizations, a center of 
government and of opulence during the Spanish 
domination, has not developed during the hun- 
dred years of her autonomy in any adequate way 
her source of natural vitality and economic well- 
being; nor in the social and political order has 
she formed a vigorous and organized national life 
corresponding to the greatness of her past and 
to the progress obtained by other American peo- 
ples. Moral energies have been suppressed. 
Spiritual oxygen is lacking in the environment 
of a people who so frequently show themselves 
sick in thought and sick in will.’’ 

Thus, the Evangelical missionaries to Latin 
America are confronted with this vast immorality 
and with the responsibility of introducing imto 

174 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Latin America a religion that changes men’s lives 
fundamentally. 

In addition to these classes that are compara- 
tively untouched by the Christian message, there 
is a vast territory in Latin America that is al- 
most wholly beyond the boundaries of any mis- 
sionary work. This is a continent within a con- 
tinent—a great empire comprising six million 
square miles, or four fifths of the area of South 
America itself. This territory, in which the Evan- 
gelical message finds practically no representa- 
tion whatever, is one third the size of the entire 
continent of Asia and more than one half of the 
continent of Africa. Without question this ter- 
ritory beyond the Latin American frontier is the 
largest region on the earth untouched by Evan- 
gelical Christianity. 

In this vast interior continent there are but 
eighty-four Protestant missionary centers. The 
territory outside the district of these eighty-four 
centers leaves wholly untouched a section of 
5,911,600 square miles. 

This is graphically pointed out in the report 
for the Montevideo Congress: ‘‘If a correspond- 
ing placement of localities were laid over North 
America, the five uppermost stations, in the areas 
considered, would lie along a line of six hundred 
miles east of the Yukon in northern Canada; the 
next two would be about seven hundred miles 

175 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


southwest in British Columbia; to these the near- 
est station eastward would be more than thirteen 
hundred miles distant on the western shore of 
Hudson Bay; beyond which, seven hundred miles 
northeast, the next lone center would fall; a 
thousand miles southeast and southwest on Hud- 
son Bay, but more than twelve hundred miles 
apart, two other centers would touch southern 
Ontario and Minnesota; a cluster of seven sta- 
tions would be scattered over Ohio, Indiana, Ken- 
tucky; another fourteen would fall in Kansas and 
Nebraska; the remainder of the eighty-four would 
be scattered through the southern states and down 
through Mexico to the border of Honduras, some 
two thousand miles.”’ 

It becomes apparent, therefore, that Latin 
America is a field of incomparable vastness for 
missionary effort. There are great classes of the 
people to whom religion is a thing of disgust, 
associated with all that they wish to avoid. There 
are others whom religion has never touched to 
awaken them to a vision of right living. Then, 
as we have seen, there is a great continent within 
a continent in which no Evangelical religious 
work is being carried on at all—a territory be- 
yond the frontier, in which dwell some thirty mil- 
lion people whose greatest need is to be set upon 
that way of enlightenment which Christ traversed. 

To meet this situation there have gone out, 

176 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


year after year, little groups of men and women 
enlisted for life in the task of carrying forward 
the lines of Christian advance. In the great cities 
of Latin America one comes in touch with the 
work of these missionaries. Churches have been 
built and hospitals founded; schools have been 
opened; and year after year the influence of these 
new agencies has grown. Religion as the Prot- 
estants preach it has slowly begun to take on 
new meaning. Government officials and influen- 
tial business and professional men who have 
heretofore spurned religion are gradually awak- 
ing to see that this kind of religion cannot be 
spurned; that it stands for the realization of the 
best ideals for which the real builders of a new 
Latin America are working. 

Thus, a few years ago, a missionary from Scot- 
land started a little day-school in Lima, the cap- 
ital city of Peru. Men and women who realized 
that the educational standards of this little school 
were unusual sent their children to the missionary. 
Today from among the most influential people in 
the city there are many more applications for 
the school than can be filled. The missionary has 
been elected to the most exclusive club of the city 
and made a professor in the exclusive Univer- 
sity of San Marcos. Through these contacts the 
influence of Evangelical Christianity is reaching 
into circles hitherto untouched. 

177 


Looking Ahead wth Latin America 


A different type of work in Peru has received 
wide recognition. In the remote highlands of 
Lake Titicaca a significant work among the In- 
dians is being carried on. Of this work a prom- 
inent Peruvian declares: ‘‘The way in which the 
Protestants have intensified their work in the 
mountains is noble. Their endeavors are inter- 
esting from the standpoint of moral and civil 
improvement. They correct the immoral customs 
of the Indians and, most important, they combat 
alcoholism, the most terrible enemy of the native, 
a vice that has been tolerated by the priests in 
their religious festivities. The Evangelicals, by 
means of their words and example, both kind and 
austere, have persuaded the people who visit them 
to quit their drinking.’’ 

In this center of work there are seventy schools 
for Indians with an average of fifty students in. 
each school, all of them taught by Indians. On 
the great industrial farm, work is carried on 
which makes these schools almost self-supporting. 
A normal school is being built. Throughout the 
entire district the economic as well as the spiritual 
standards of the people have been raised. Better 
crops have come as a result of the work of this 
farm and new methods have been introduced. 
The director of the farm has become the spokes- 
man for the Government in matters of road build- 
ing and other public questions. Christianity, in 

178 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


this district, is being given a new meaning and 
has a new significance. 

Down in the city of Santiago, Chile, are two 
great Protestant schools—the Santiago College 
and the Instituto Inglés. These are not second- 
rate organizations. The teachers and the stu- 
dents, alike, have made a place—and a big place 
—for themselves in the life of the country. The 
students of the mission colleges and the govern- 
ment schools mingle freely. A genuine fellowship 
is developing. Every young Christian student 
who sits down with a non-Christian student may 
become, in a very real sense, a spokesman for 
Christ. Among the women students at the uni- 
versity, the Young Women’s Christian Associa- 
tion, but recently organized, has become a signifi- 
cant influence. The students declared, in the sec- 
ond year of the organization, that they would 
carry on all of the local expenses of the Y.W.C.A. 
themselves. 

The influence of these groups of active, straight- | 
thinking, straight-living Christians has reached , 
to those in the highest places of the government. 
The President of Chile, Sr. Arturo Alessandri, 
who was elected on a reform platform and backed 
solidly by the Protestants, declared recently, 
when presented with a copy of the Bible by rep- 
resentatives of the Evangelical Union of Santiago: 
‘“‘T am a Christian. I believe in the doctrines of 

179 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Christ. I accept the sound doctrines of the Bible 
and reject all clerical errors. I raise the white 
flag to all truth. This book of yours which you 
present will remain by my side. It will be my 
guide, and I shall know how to appreciate it at 
its true worth. If Congress confirms my election, 
when I come into the Capitol, I will work inces- 
santly for complete and absolute liberty of con- 
science. If I enter the nation’s capital the doors 
will be open to help every good work which you 
do and you will always occupy a place in my 
heart.’’ 

In Buenos Aires—a city of two million people 
—the Y.M.C.A. has nearly four thousand mem- 
bers. Students of all faiths and of no faith at 
all have united in a campaign with the Y.M.C.A. 
to help the needy students of Europe. The 
Colegio Americano is supported jointly by Meth- 
odists and Disciples of Christ. Its place is large 
in the educational life of the city. 

In Montevideo the influence of Evangelicalism 
is widely apparent. The rector of the University 
was formerly a teacher in the Methodist Sunday 
school and was educated in the Waldensian col- 
ony. The Methodist Church in Montevideo num- 
bers among its members some of the outstanding 
men and women in the life of the nation: a justice 
of the Supreme Court, university professors, 
prominent business and professional men. 

180 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Rio de Janeiro has one hundred Evangeli- 
eal preaching stations. The First Presbyterian 
Church has a membership of a thousand and an 
average Sunday-school attendance of a thousand. 
It maintains social rooms, a printing-press, and 
a pastor’s residence, and has sent missionaries 
into remote sections of the country. The member- 
ship includes members of Congress, bankers, 
lawyers, physicians, merchants, and literary men, 
as well as those of humbler station. The gov- 
ernor of the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo 
is a member of the Methodist Church. This gov- 
ernor gives one tenth of his income to the work 
of the church. 

The papers of Rio have thrown open their col- 
umns to free discussions of religious problems. 
The Evangelical hospital in Rio cost $100,000 and 
that amount was entirely raised by the members 
of the churches of the city. The Y.M.C.A. raised 
over $100,000 in the city for its new building. 
One year after its opening the Y.W.C.A. had 
twelve hundred members, among them many of 
the most prominent women of the city. 

One illustration, presented by Dr. Samuel Guy 
Inman, will indicate how wide is the popular in- 
terest in religion in Rio and in certain sections 
of Latin America. Dr. José Carlos Rodriguez was 
at one time the editor and proprietor of the Jour- 
nal of Commerce, the largest daily paper in Rio de 

181 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


Janeiro. His understanding of international af- 
fairs was very profound. But he was particu- 
larly interested in Bible study. As a young man 
he had begun that study and continued it into 
later life. Several years ago, in the columns of 
his paper, he began to publish a series of articles 
on the study of the Bible. He became so inter- 
ested in this project that he sold his paper and 
has devoted himself to writing on the subject. 
His great book on the study of the Old Testa- 
ment is reviewed by the literary critic, Dr. José 
Ribeiro, in one of the papers of Rio de Janeiro, 
in part as follows: 

‘‘This book of Dr. Rodriguez makes us think 
of new roads that may be opened as an outlet 
for the religious stagnation. It is not a book of 
propaganda, but it is a worthy effort and God 
grant that it may bring results. Books of this 
kind are what the Latin people need. On reading 
Dr. Rodriguez’ book we have been impressed with 
the idea that it is the only book in all our lan- 
guage that takes into account modern science in 
the discussion of religion. It does not, however, 
follow the extreme of the German’s rationalism. 
On the contrary, it is a book of profound religious 
faith, which loves discussion and historical criti- 
cism, in which proof of the truth is found.’’ 

These evidences of the influence of Evangelical 
Christianity in Latin America might be multi- 

182 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


plied. Slowly, but none the less certainly, a 
moral and religious awakening is coming in these 
southern countries. For generations this new 
conquest of Latin America has been proceeding. 
The line of Christian advance has been exceed- 
ingly thin. Missionaries hundreds and thousands 
of miles apart; remote schools; humble churches; 
the open Bible; the example of men and women 
who have been lifted into a higher type of lfe— 
these have been the materials of this campaign. 
But now, after these years of work by men and 
women who have gone out in their youth to give 
of their whole life, a revival of religion is com- 
ing. In a thousand places the signs of this new 
day are apparent. What are we, who live here 
in North America, who enjoy the easy advantages 
of our religious freedom, to whom the church and 
the school are institutions taken for granted— 
what are we, in this rich continent, to do to help 
the coming of this new day in Latin America? 


Looking ahead to Latin America’s new day calls 
to mind a very old picture—one that was enacted 
in real life. Its scene is laid in an ancient city 
of the Hast. Hills, barren hills, rise from beyond 
the city’s wall. Streets are narrow, houses low, 
and darkened doorways open into tiny courtyards. 
A stranger has come to this town. His fame has 
come before him. The town is in excitement. Up 

183 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


in the portico of the great temple elder statesmen 
of the church, alarmed because of this ‘‘heretic,’’ 
are gathered in little gesticulating groups de- 
nouncing him and shaking their heads that people 
run off after false teachers. Evening is come 
down from the hills. <A last patch of the day’s 
sun rests on the highest point and tips the top 
of a turret over the wall. In the narrow streets 
it is twilight. Long shadows stretch and lengthen. 
Somewhere, through a doorway, a baby cries. 
Three children play some Kastern game in a little 
square. And under the shadow of the temple the 
beggars crouch—their hands extended. 

Before the door where the stranger lodges a 
little crowd has gathered. The sick of the city 
have come: two blind men, hand in hand; a mother 
carrying a child whose face is flushed with fever; 
cripples, with crutches or crawling along the 
rough-hewn cobbles; a paralytic, carried on his 
bed by two men. The eyes of them all turn pite- 
ously toward that open door. The narrow street 
is darkening. The boys stop their play and edge 
through the crowd to a place by the door. 

And the stranger comes. The people press for- 
ward. Their hands go out toward him. A cripple, 
from the cobbles, reaches up to touch his flowing 
garments. His eyes smile. He sees the fevered 
baby. He touches it. The fever goes and the 
mother, her eyes aglow, sinks to her knees and 

184 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


then hurries joyously down the street through 
the twilight. 

An hour later—and it is night. The crowd has 
gone. The stranger too has turned within. The 
beggars have left their begging before the temple 
‘portico. The street is empty. But into a home 
where a child was at the point of death; and into 
a hovel where the cripples, at the day’s end, 
dragged themselves; and into the heart of the 
paralytic who was borne by two friends—into 
these places where men and women and children 
live, the quiet, smiling stranger has entered. And 
the next morning, when the day has come, the 
sun glowed down from above the hills, over the 
turreted walls and into the narrow streets of a 
different village—different because this man had 
lodged there. 

It is to follow in the footsteps of the Man of 
Galilee that men and women have gone to Latin 
America and to the ends of the earth to bring 
a gospel of healing and of happiness. It is to 
complete His work, begun in these ancient villages 
of the Hast, that missionaries in schools, in hospi- 
tals, in dispensaries, and churches are continuing 
to carry on; and that men and women of other 
lands are consecrating their wealth to the com- 
pletion of that enterprise. 


Latin America—from the sand-swept plains be- 
185 


Looking Ahead with Latin America 


low the Rio Grande, out across the islands of the 
Caribbean, along the highlands of the Andes, and 
the rivers of Brazil, down to the wind-torn Straits 
of Magellan—Latin America needs new cam- 
paigners for Christ. It needs those who believe 
in fellowship and good-will and Christian neigh- 
borliness; who have a faith that in these southern 
empires a new Kingdom of the Cross may be 
upbuilt. 

It is important that we study to know the needs 
of Latin America. It is much more important 
to know what we are going to do to meet them. 


186 


Note on Pronunciation 


The Spanish language is practically phonetic. Once 
the sounds of the letters of the alphabet are learned, 
the pronunciation is simple. In general the conso- 
nants are pronounced as in English. The few excep- 
tions are noted below. 


is always 4 as in “father.” 

is always 4 as in “race.” 

is always 6@ as in “meet.” 

is always 6 as in “note.” 

is always 60 as in “moon.” 

after a vowel and followed by a consonant, or 

at the end of a word is like “ee” in “meet”; 

at the beginning of a syllable, or of a word, y 

is a consonant, and is pronounced as in “year.” 

d is as in English; final d is frequently pronounced 
athe: 

g before e and i has a strong guttural aspiration, 
similar to ch in German. Before a, and o, 
and u, g is as in “go.” G in the combination 
“oui” and “gue” is always hard. 

h is never pronounced. 

j has always the guttural sound of h. 

ll is pronounced as in “brilliant.” 

n is like “ny” in “canyon.” 

r at the beginning of a word, and when doubled, 
is slightly trilled. 

s and z are like “ss” as in “pass’—never like z. 


4romom & 


Note: The Castilian pronunciation of ¢ and z is 
not followed in Latin America 


187 


A Brief Reading List 


A lengthy list of books on Latin America might be appended 
to this work, but it seems sufficient to limit the number to a few 
which deal with the special subject in hand, or provide general 
information as a background. : 

All those included in the list are recent works, or indispensable 
because of their value to the understanding of the problems under 
discussion. Fuller lists may be had from any book-dealer, or 
from the Committee on Cooperation in Latin America, 25 Madison 
Avenue, New York City. 

Asterisks indicate books specially recommended for a small ref- 


erence library. 


GENERAL AND DESCRIPTIVE 


South America Today. S. G. Inman. Committee on Coopera- 
tion in Latin America, New York. 1922. Fifty cents. 
A booklet dealing with the social and religious situation as 
observed on a trip through South America. 

Men, Maidens, and Mantillas. S. B. May. Century Co., New 
York. $3.50. 
A popular, picturesque sketch of Latin American life today. 

*Tatin America, Its Rise and Progress. F. GARCIA CALDERON. 
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. 1919. $4.50. 
Valuable to all students of South American questions as pre- 
senting the views of a scholarly Latin American. 

Understanding South America. C. 8. Cooper. George H. Doran 
Co., New York. 1918. $2.00. 
An account by a genuinely sympathetic traveler of condi- 
tions as they exist today in South America. 

* Makers of South America. MarcARETTE DANIELS. Missionary 
Education Movement, New York. 1916. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 
75 cents. 
Biographical sketches of twelve men in different spheres, who 
have left their impress on South America. They include: 
Francisco Pizarro, José de Anchieta, José de San Martin, 
Simon Bolivar, James Thomson, Allen Gardiner, Juan Manuel 
Rosas, Domingo F. Sarmiento, Dom Pedro II, David Trum- 
bull, Francisco Penzotti, W. Barbrooke Grubb. 

The New Latin America. J. WarsHaw. T. Y. Crowell Co., 
New York. 1922. $3.00. 
A comprehensive account of the march of progress in Latin 
America, with a fine estimate of the part played therein by 
missions. 

188 


A Brief Reading List 


Latin America. Wutt1am R. SHEPHERD. (Home University 
Library of Modern Knowledge.) Henry Holt, New York. 
1914. Fifty cents. An excellent and concise account, very 
valuable for reference. 


History 


*The Rise of the Spanish-American Republics. As Told in the 
Lives of Their Liberators. W. S. Rosperrson. D. Appleton 
and Co., New York. 1921. $3.00. 

A somewhat detailed history based on the original sources of 
the recent developments of the Spanish-American Republics. 

* Journal of First Voyage to America. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Albert and Charles Boni, New York. 1924. $3.50. 
An abstract from the original log of this momentous voyage 
which gave the New World to European civilization. Of 
special help in the study of the West Indies, Colombia, and 
Venezuela. 

Hispanic Nations of the New World; a chronicle of our southern 
neighbors. Wutt1aAM R. SHEPHERD. Yale University Press, 
New Haven, Conn. 1919. $1.75. 


GOVERNMENTAL AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 


* Problems in Pan-Americanism. 8. G. InMan. George H. Doran 
Co., New York. 1921. $2.00. 
A discussion of the present-day problems which affect the 
relations of the American republics. Contains good bibliog- 
raphy. 


MExIco 


Mewico Today. G. B. Winton. Missionary Education Movement, 
New York. 1916. Out of print, but available in many 
libraries. 

This book, although somewhat out of date, still has value 
in present-day studies. 

*The Social Revolution in Mexico. HE. A. Ross. Century Co., 
New York. 1923. $1.75. 

This well-known sociologist, author of South of Panama, 
tells in this book his impressions of recent movements in 
Mexico. 

Beautiful Mexico, VERNON Quinn. F, A. Stokes Co., New York. 
1924. 

A delightful treatment of the story, legends, and scenic 
charm of Mexico. 
189 


A Brief Reading List 


THe West INDIES 


Through Santo Domingo and Haiti. S. G. Inman. Committee 
on Cooperation in Latin America, New York. Fifty cents. 
The report of a visit made to these republics in the summer 
of 1919 by the Secretary of the Committee on Cooperation in 
Latin America. 

Crusading im the West Indies. W.I. Jornpan. Fleming H. Revell 
Co., New York. 1922. $1.75. 

A record of twelve years’ work, chiefly in Cuba and Haiti, 
in the interests of Bible work. 


CENTRAL AMERICA 


*The Five Republics of Central America. Dana G. Muwnro. 
Carnegie Foundation, New York. 1922. $3.50. 
One of the most concrete studies of the republics of Central 
America. Particularly helpful to an understanding of social 
and economic conditions. 


SoutH AMERICA 


The Brazilians and Their Country. C. F. Cooper. Heinemann 
and Co., London. 1920. 
A sympathetic study of this great republic and its people. 

* Working North from Patagonia. Harry A. FRANCK. Century 
Co., New York. 1921. $5.00. 
This is the final volume of Mr. Franck’s story of his vaga- 
bond journey through Latin American countries. It deals 
particularly with his experiences in Brazil. | 

Two Thousand Miles through Chile. Earu C. May. Century 
Co., New York. 1924. $3.50. 
The above volume deals interestingly with this little republic 
on the west coast. 

The Colombian and Venezuelan Republics. W.L. Scruaes. Little, 
Brown and Co., Boston. 1919. $2.50. 


RELIGIouS CONDITIONS AND CHRISTIAN WorK 


South American Problems. Rozert E. Speer. Student Volunteer 
Movement, New York. 1912. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 75 cents. 
It was this book, written after the visit of the author to 
South America in 1909, that first fairly stated the case for 
Evangelical missions in Roman Catholic America. 

* Roman Catholicism in Latin America. WrBSTER E. BROWNING. 
Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 1924. $1.00. 


190 


A Brief Reading List 


An especially valuable book to supplement the study of the 
religious situation. 

*New Days in Latin America. WEBSTER E. BROWNING. 
Missionary Education Movement, New York. 1925. Cloth, 
$1.00; paper, 60 cents. 

A careful study of the conditions and opportunities in the 
Latin American world, giving the results of the author’s 
thirty years of observation, travel, and study. 


Modern Missions on the Spanish Main. W. REGINALD WHEELER 
and WeEsSTER E. Browning. Presbyterian Board of Publica- 
tion, Philadelphia. 1925. $2.00. 

A study of Protestant missions in Colombia and Venezuela. 


* Glimpses of Indian America. W. F. Jorpan. Fleming H. 
Revell Co., New York. 1923. $1.75. , 
A study of the Indian situation in Mexico, Central America, 
Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, by a Secretary of the American 
Bible Society. 


* Curistian Work IN SourH America. The official report of the 
Congress on Christian Work in South America, at Montevi- 
deo, Uruguay, April, 1925. Fleming H. Revell Co., New 
York. $4.00 per set of 2 vols. Ready in autumn, 1925. 
Indispensable for collateral use in any thorough study of the 
social and religious situation in South America today. The 
following are the commission reports with the names of the 
respective chairmen: 


Unoccupied Fields. Charles T. Paul. 

Indians. Dr. William I. Haven. 

Education. Dr. Frank K. Sanders. 

Evangelism. Dr. Charles M. Braden. 

Social Movements. Miss Elizabeth McFarland. 

Health Ministry. 

Church in the Community. Bishop Francis J. McConnell. 

Religious Education. Dr. Eric North. 

Literature. Dr. Harry Farmer. 

Relations between Foreign and National Workers. Dr. E. 
H. Rawlings. 

Special Religious Problems. Dr. John A. Mackay. 

Cooperation and Unity. Dr. 8S. H. Chester. 


A Church in the Wilds. W. B. Gauss. E. P. Dutton and Co., 
New York. 1914. $2.50. 
A first-hand description of the work of the South American 
mission among the Indian tribes of the Paraguayan Chaco. 


ph bs 


A Brief Reading Last 


Indians of Latin America. Committee on Cooperation in Latin 
America, New York. 1924. Fifteen cents. 
A pamphlet giving an excellent, although necessarily brief, 
survey. 


LITERATURE 


Ariel. Jos&% E. Ropvo. Translated by F. J. Stimson. Houghton 
Miffin Co., Boston. $1.25. : 
‘A remarkable and inspiring treatise comparing the philosophy 
of life of North and South Americans, from the point of 
view of a Latin American. 


192 


sf hii 
A Nhs 
Pa 


ct i" 
hes, ¢ Joy, 
war «abs 





Date Due 


rp * 
Same : 


ty 


as 
es VY 


i 


iy 
y , 


ti 


‘ y i K ye SF x 
A ak 


Hy) 





F1408 .H63 
spoons ahead with Latin America, 


n Theological Seminary—Spe 


1 1012 00024 6878 





